Protection of the environment in times of armed conflict

That the international community is paying attention to the problems of environmental degradation and safeguarding the environment is stil an actual development. This attention first occured in relation to the protection of environment in peace time. However, recent armed conflicts like Vietnam contributed immensely to the highlighting of this till then neglected aspect of warfare.Today there are some environment-related regulations embedded in that body of rules, we call International Humanitarian Law. These regulations, which aim directly to safeguard environmental values, shall form the main body of this dissertation. In addition to them, those humanitarian rules which protect other values than environment shall also be probed into, for these too have an indirect protective effect as regards the environment. Along with these inquiries within the second chapter, we shall undertake an investigation in the realm of International Criminal Law, which too comprises some rules, which directly or indirectly may have a bearing on the fate of environmental consideration during armed conflicts.Lastly, in the third chapter, we will tackle the question of the implementation of the rules of the International Environmental Law in times of armed conflict. If such an implemantation shall be deemed to be possible, we shall try to establish a model regarding how that implementation shall be realized.In the light of the dissertation at hand, we have established that the number of those International Law regulations can not be said to be low. However, these rules and regulations fail to generate a coherent and effective legal regime for the protection of the environment during armed conflicts.