The project Resource Wars in an Unequal World (REWA) deals with a pressing issue: the relationship between the natural world, on the one side, and violent conflict and insecurity, on the other. More precisely, the project investigates how international legal norms and practices have dealt with wars driven by or associated with ecological factors. Since the 1980s, accumulating research in peace and conflict studies has sought to explain how ecological issues, broadly understood, may contribute to the outbreak, prolongation and, even, resolution of violent conflict. Recognition of these issues has grown over the years and international efforts to ‘manage’ them, including through international law, have risen.
The importance of examining these questions is confirmed by growing evidence detailing how pollution, resource depletion and climate change may aggravate the vulnerability of ecosystems on which we, as humans, depend and affect individuals who are already at the margins of society, thereby fueling grievances and conflicts. Current academic and policy debates on how mass population movement caused by climate change (‘climate refugees/migrants’) may increase political tensions within ‘fragile’ states highlight the broader significance of this project, which extends beyond situations of military hostilities. The ongoing war against Ukraine illustrates the importance of the project for society. Not only has the military conflict resulted in significant environmental impacts that could leave the country and region with a toxic legacy for generations. The war in Ukraine has also been fought with energy policies, including the EU import prohibition on Russian oil and the Russian ‘weaponization’ of gas supplies. Shedding light on how international law conceptualizes nature and addresses ecological concerns is paramount to understand the dynamics of the war in Ukraine and beyond.
The main objective of this project has been to address a knowledge gap in the existing legal literature. Until now, there has been limited integration of other disciplines into the study of legal practices in this area. This project moves from the assumption that international law cannot be understood outside its socio-political-economic context. In engaging with a variety of critical traditions and a rich literature in environmental, development, and peace and conflict studies, this project challenges conventional wisdom about the capacity of international law (as we know it) to generate meaningful responses to structural ecological problems. The project also aims at opening spaces to rethink dominant approaches and solutions to some of the international legal order’s most pressing concerns: the ecological crisis, rising civil wars, and their interaction. It is evident that how a particular problem is understood determines the solutions to it. The project initiates a more inclusive conversation that will result in better legal and policy approaches to the violence associate with resource/environmental wars in different contexts.
