Reply #11: Apparently not.... Remember bushco* doesn't do Geneva.... [View All]

[leftchick]

Conventions..

<snip>
The clearest prohibition of environmental abuse in wartime is contained in the 1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions. But the United States has refused to ratify the protocol, with the Pentagon claiming that its humanitarian tilt "would thwart quick victories in war." According to Ken Hurwitz, an international humanitarian-law specialist with Human Rights First in New York, "The problem is that although the United States has accepted many of the provisions of Protocol I in practice, it has specifically rejected Article 55." This bars "methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment."

If the Geneva Conventions offer no remedy, what about the laws that govern the postwar conduct of a victorious occupier? "You're more or less stuck with the Hague rules," says Hurwitz, referring to the 1907 Fourth Hague Convention, which makes no mention of the environment. Yet while occupying forces often take a minimalist view of their responsibilities, the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq did exactly the opposite. It demanded sweeping legal powers to remake Iraqi society, arguing that peace and security depended on reviving the economy and guaranteeing the provision of basic services. In the process, the coalition -- unintentionally, no doubt -- assumed broad responsibility for protecting key elements of the Iraqi environment.