Carl Bruch

Environmental Law Institute | ELI

Peaceful and healthy environments are prerequisites for sustainable development, but in many regions of the world, the devastating impacts of armed conflict, unsustainable resource exploitation and climate change are intensifying the degradation of our environments and contributing to fragility, instability, and insecurity. In response to these c...

Environmental peacebuilding is a rapidly growing field of practice and research at the intersection of the environment, conflict, and peace. Due to the newness of the field, the inherent intersectionality of the work, and the complexity and volatility of the context of this work, effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is both essential and under...

This Primer complements the Toolkit on Monitoring and Evaluation of Environmental Peacebuilding. It provides background on key concepts related to the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of environmental peacebuilding. Those who are already proficient in M&E and environmental peacebuilding may proceed directly to the Toolkit, while environmental peaceb...

Since the publication of the First Global Report on Environmental Rule of Law in 2019, environmental rule of law has both advanced and been challenged. Climate change and addressing historical social inequities have dominated political and social discourse in many countries, shaping recent developments in the environmental rule of law. The COVID-19...

Our complex, globalized world has created an environment that presents new challenges to countries striving for peace and security. While inter-state wars have become less frequent in the last 50 years, civil wars have become more common and intractable. Recognizing this changing reality, the post-Cold War academic and political discourse emphasize...

This article presents a legal and policy framework for Migration with Dignity. As the scale of internal and international migration continues to grow, rhetoric around migration has been increasingly politicized and intended to fuel feelings of xenophobia. The way migration is framed has a substantial impact on both how migrants are able to cope and...

The scale of migration is increasing, and while great uncertainty exists in identifying exact numbers, the estimated number of international migrants is already surpassing 2050 projections in the order of 2.6%, or 230 million. As people migrate, they face a number of challenges including exposure to disease and other health threats, violence and as...

This chapter defines and describes the emerging field of environmental peacebuilding. It starts with a brief overview of the academic and policy discourse on environment, conflict, and peace. This discourse has generated many of the threads that – when woven together – form the fabric of environmental peacebuilding. It then outlines the core dimen...

Environmental peacebuilding practitioners and their funders must be prepared for the unique challenges of operating in conflict-affected contexts by creating responsive and effective policies, practices, safeguards, and risk-mitigation strategies to ensure safe, successful, and sustainable interventions.

The Migration with Dignity Framework focuses on the dignity of individuals: the framework stresses the importance of skill-building, practical knowledge, and protections essential for building peace.

Environmental peacebuilding is an emerging and rapidly evolving field, and there is value in articulating a broad, integrated definition of the field to support its ongoing development and evolution.

Improved integration of monitoring, evaluation, and learning approaches to peacebuilding could enhance the evidence base for resilience and inform future programming on building resilience and sustaining peace

This chapter looks at how the concern for the environment in relation to armed conflict can be addressed from several bodies of international law. These diverse bodies of law emerged largely isolated from one another: international humanitarian law, international environmental law, international criminal law, international human rights law, the...

Environmental peacebuilding is a rapidly growing field of research and practice at the intersection of environment, conflict, peace and security. Focusing on these linkages is crucial in a time when the environment is a core issue of international politics and the number of armed conflicts remains high. This article introduces a special issue with...

International law has become increasingly kaleidoscopic. There is a growing diversity of actors, subjects, objectives, obligations, dynamics, and mechanisms. With these innovations, there are numerous international instruments that do not fit squarely into the traditional taxonomy of international law (consisting of treaty, custom, and general prin...

International law has become increasingly kaleidoscopic. There is a growing diversity of actors, subjects, objectives, obligations, dynamics, and mechanisms. With these innovations, there are numerous international instruments that do not fit squarely into the traditional taxonomy of international law (consisting of treaty, custom, and general prin...

In the aftermath of conflict, managing water is critical, as access to water and sanitation is necessary for meeting basic human needs, restoring livelihoods, ensuring food security, rebuilding the economy and promoting reconciliation. This article argues that governance is critical for meeting the challenges in the water sector in post‐conflict se...

Recent years have seen dramatic growth in people migrating due to environmental shocks and changes. Many of these shocks and changes are climate-related. Environmental migration can occur due to sudden-onset events, such as hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves and slow-onset events, such as coastal erosion, sea level rise, and droughts. Migrants may m...

The Pacific Islander population in the U.S. continues to grow, with the Portland-Salem, Oregon area serving as one of the largest communities, notably among those from the Micronesian region. Migrants emigrate for a variety of reasons including educational and employment opportunities, improved healthcare, and assisting family members. The purpose...

The emigration of Marshallese to the USA has grown dramatically since 2000, with the largest numbers concentrating in Springdale, Arkansas. While the impetus for relocation is often driven by a desire for improved educational and employment opportunities, many arrive to find challenges that limit integration into their new community. This article s...

Human rights can be achieved only through a rule of law that advances environmental protection. Environmental rule of law is a set of environmental governance mechanisms, principles, and practices that hold all entities equally accountable to publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated laws that are consistent with interna...

This textbook accompanies the massive open online course (MOOC) on Environmental Security and Sustaining Peace. Conflicts over natural resources and the environment pose some of the greatest challenges in 21st century geopolitics, presenting serious threats to human security at the local, national, and international levels. Nonetheless, natural res...

Since 1989, notable changes in geopolitics, technology, social movements, and economics have transformed the world. With respect to conflict and post-conflict environmental peacebuilding, three key themes characterize the post-Cold War world: (1) a change in how wars are fought and financed; (2) a change in the United Nations’ (U.N.’s) engagement o...

If human society is to stay within the bounds of critical ecological thresholds, it is imperative that environmental laws are widely understood, respected, and enforced and the benefits of environmental protection are enjoyed by people and the planet. Environmental rule of law offers a framework for addressing the gap between environmental laws on...

Constitutions can play a central role in responding to environmental challenges, such as pollution, biodiversity loss, lack of drinking water, and climate change. The vast majority of people on earth live under constitutional systems that protect the environment or recognize environmental rights. Such environmental constitutionalism, however, falls...

Environmental constitutionalism has tended to focus on the right to a healthy environment and related procedural rights necessary for their effective implementation. Increasingly, though, structural issues related to the ownership of, control over, and access to benefits from natural resources are recognized as central to social stability –and are...

This Article examines the various ways countries throughout the world have started to incorporate considerations of climate change adaptation into their framework environmental laws, implementing regulations, and other binding instruments. Drawing upon searches in databases of environmental laws, it examines national legislative and regulatory lang...

This chapter reviews how the Security Council, the preeminent interpellator of threats to international peace and security, has addressed the environment and natural resources in its Resolutions. It aims to provide empirical data and analysis on how the environment has been securitized: when, how, and in what context it emerged as an issue for the...

Environmental constitutionalism has tended to focus on the right to a healthy environment and related procedural rights necessary for their effective implementation. Increasingly, though, structural issues related to the ownership of, control over, and access to benefits from natural resources are recognized as central to social stability – and are...

This article examines the international policy and institutional frameworks for response to natural and man-made disasters occurring in the Danube basin and the Tisza sub-basin, two transnational basins. Monitoring and response to these types of incidents have historically been managed separately. We discuss whether the policy distinctions in respo...

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here. I'd like to start with a few general observations. First, it appears that the Trump administration might be responsive to some of the business cases for staying engaged on international environmental issues. The administration includes many leaders from industry. This is the culture that they come from, includi...

This chapter explores the role of the law of pillage in the emerging body of jus post bellum with respect to temporal considerations as to its application; its relationship to the law of occupation; the scope of actors to whom pillage applies; and the legal and practical implications of approaching pillage as an economic crime. The chapter discusse...

This chapter seeks to place the environmental provisions of jus post bellum in the broader context of environmental peacebuilding. In considering the efforts to articulate a new body of jus post bellum, particularly as it relates to natural resources and the environment, it presents three key observations. First, there is a large and diverse body o...

The food security crisis and international “land grabs” have drawn renewed attention to the role of natural resource competition in the livelihoods of the rural poor. While significant empirical research has focused on diagnosing the links between natural resource competition and (violent) conflict, much less has focused on the dynamics of whether...

This document defines and contextualizes key concepts linking environmental, human, and theater security, including “security,” “environmental security,” and “human security.” It then introduces disaster risk management as a framework for engaging military and civilian authorities in developing a whole-of-government approach and building resilience...

This chapter highlights existing institutions and capacities that can be deployed for disaster risk management. It starts with a discussion of the process for assessing capacities and some of the key international, regional, and national actors in the military and civilian sectors with technical expertise, capacity, and authority to address climate...

The destructive impacts of Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy displaced large numbers of people. While some families were able to return home soon after the disasters, others struggled to do so and remained displaced for extended periods of time. Although much attention has been paid to the immediate response to natural disasters, research on p...

The Great East Japan Earthquake and the ensuing tsunami and nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi displaced more than 340,000 people. Four years later, more than 70,000 people were still living in temporary housing. This article summarizes findings from a series of structured interviews with people from Hirono Town that were still living in tempora...

To protect biodiversity, this methodology provides contextual understanding that is necessary for programs to be sensitive to conflict — from social tensions to riots to wars — yielding more appropriate and effective solutions and reducing unintended consequences.

To protect biodiversity, this methodology provides contextual understanding that is necessary for programs to be sensitive to conflict — from social tensions to riots to wars — yielding more appropriate and effective solutions and reducing unintended consequences.

Sometimes, it is possible to take bold measures to address environmental threats. Often, though, it is necessary to adopt a variety of measures that make incremental progress. For several years, people have called for a global agreement on so-called “climate refugees.” There are three key legal and practical reasons that this is unlikely to happen...

The increase in demand and prices of most high-value natural resources over the past five decades has resulted in massive income gains for resource-abundant countries. Paradoxically, many of these countries have suffered from slow economic growth, weak political institutions, and violent conflict. To combat corruption, increase accountability, and...

This article explores the elements limiting adaptive governance in the Tisza sub-basin, considers policy options available to the sub-basin, and concludes that more attention must be paid to frameworks governing adaptation in transboundary sub-basins where resources are limited. The Tisza is the largest sub-basin in the Danube River basin, and face...

Climate Change Induced Transboundary Displaced Persons (CCITDPs) are people who are forced to leave their own country permanently because of adverse effects of climate change such as submergence of homeland by sealevel rise. The type of displacement anticipated by climate change implications is analogous to forced displacement resulting from war, c...

In The Role of International Environmental Law in Disaster Risk Reduction, edited by Jacqueline Peel and David Fisher, expert authors from four continents offer perspectives on the growing intersection between environmental law and disaster risk management. Chapters discuss the potential for retasking environmental law tools and principles for purp...

The special issue on Human Conflict (18 May, p. [818][1]) largely ignores a central dimension of violent conflict: the complex role of natural resources in the onset ([ 1 ][2]) and conduct of conflict, peacemaking, and recovery from conflict. Grievances over access to land have been central to wars

Peacebuilding efforts and international environmental law have developed independently and in very different manners. There have been efforts to develop common approaches and standardize procedures, but organizations and individuals seeking to build the foundations for a durable peace still operate under a variety of guiding frameworks. Natural res...

Since the end of the Cold War, peacebuilding efforts and international environmental law have developed independently and in very different manners. Experiences in managing natural resources to support post‐conflict peacebuilding in dozens of countries over the past twenty years, however, highlight the critical role that natural resources often pla...

Adaptation to climate change will play a critical role in water management in the coming decades, necessitating reform of the legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks that govern water allocation, use, and quality to integrate adaptive water management. Legal and regulatory tools can also facilitate adaptive responses. This article provides...

Decision making processes for developing water resources systems infrastructure and operational policies have ceased to be the exclusive domain of just a few, privileged persons making decisions. Now, more and more groups of the society at both the international and national levels are demanding opportunities to participate in decision making, as w...

There are three key deficiencies in the existing body of international humanitarian law (IHL) relating to protection of the environment during armed conflict. First, the definition of impermissible environmental damage is both too restrictive and unclear; second, there are legal uncertainties regarding the protection of elements of the environment...

Decision making processes for developing water resources systems infrastructure and operational policies have ceased to be the exclusive domain of just a few, privileged persons making decisions. Now, more and more groups of the society at both the international and national levels are demanding opportunities to participate in decision making, as w...

Multilateral environmental agreements (MEA) comprise a patchwork of international environmental law that attempts to clarify the relationship among the agreements so as to improve their synergistic operation at the international level. The countries are also approaching for synergistic implementation of international environmental laws that offer a...

We live in a complex world full of uncertainty. This is particularly true of hydrological systems and the myriad other factors affecting water management. The nonlinear nature of the hydrologic cycle is well documented (Gleick, 1987; Lewin, 1992; Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 2006; Ruhl, 1997). As the debate on climate change and climate chang...

This report inventories and analyses the range of international laws that protect the environment during armed conflict. With a view to identifying the current gaps and weaknesses in this system, the authors examine the relevant provisions within four bodies of international law – international humanitarian law (IHL), international criminal law (IC...

To combat global warming, even under the most aggressive emissions reductions schemes, society must adapt to a changing planet. Environmental law also needs to adapt to meet dramatic new challenges not envisioned by the statutes' drafters.

For millennia, countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have developed laws, regulations and other rules to govern their scarce water. These laws have been updated in recent years. This review of the legal frameworks (including regulations, decrees and other rules) reveals both progress and gaps in managing water quality, water q...

Transboundary impact assessment (TIA) has become an important environmental management tool, particularly where a project may have transboundary impacts. With the growing practice of TIA, it becomes important to consider the accuracy of the transboundary impact assessments that are being conducted. If TIA is a planning tool designed to provide a ba...

International environmental law is now in its adolescence. The hundreds of multilateral environmental agreements adopted since the 1972 Stockholm Conference desperately need implementation. Developing countries, which face particular challenges in putting into effect the numerous accords, are creating innovative and often ingenious approaches. More...

The last decade has seen the scholarly and institutional debate turn from whether public involvement in international watercourse management is necessary to how it should be realised. Experiences in various contexts present options for further development. These options include providing public access information on the status of watercourses, fact...

Many African nations are in the nascent stages of implementing constitutions. This article explores the development of those constitutions, the different forms of legislative representation, and the powers embodied in those constitutions to implement and enforce environmental laws.

The tactics of war have profound impacts on tropical forest ecosystems, and modern weapons technologies have greatly increased their destructive potential. Some legal protection is afforded by customary international law, and the international community responded to the Vietnam War by adopting, inter alia, the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Gene...

In recent years, the critical role of civil society and the public in protecting the environment has become clear. International declarations and agreements such as the 1992 Rio Declaration increasingly recognise the role that individuals (including citizens and non-citizens), non-governmental organisations, and local governments have in sustainabl...

Addressing excessive environmental damage from armed conflict has always been problematic. Two environmental attorneys who served as principal organizers of the First International Conference on Addressing Environmental Consequences of War draw on the meeting's findings to sketch out a solution. New international institutions could use a mixture of...

In 1994, the Ninth Circuit affirmed standing for citizens to sue to compel the EPA Administrator to undertake a statewide TMDL program. Although the citizens had standing for only some of the water-quality-limited waters in Alaska, the court held that the underlying cause of action was the EPA's failure to initiate the TMDL process for Alaska. This...

Despite the potentially devastating impacts of climate change on ecosystems and resource-livelihood communities, conservation officials struggle to respond and adapt (U.S. GAO 2009). They lack funding to include climate considerations in planning, clear mandates to take proactive measures to prepare systems for impacts, or a procedural framework fo...