Individual responsibility for the war crime of damaging the natural environment : the case of the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam

Abstract

In every armed conflict, each party would try their best to win the conflict for their own benefit. These armed conflicts did not only impact the livelihood of civilians and their living conditions, but also towards the natural environment. Such an attack that poses widespread, long-term, and severe damage towards the natural environment during an armed conflict should be considered as war crimes pursuant to Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute. The most recent case is the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine during the Ukraine - Russia war. Such a case should be brought to the ICC for the violation of Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute. However, due to the vague and high threshold of “widespread, long-term, and severe” provided by the commentaries of the AP I, there is no specific threshold for those terms making it a legal nullity. The writing of this thesis focuses on two things: (1) the thresholds for widespread, long-term, and severe damage to the natural environment in times of armed conflict under Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute; and (2) the actualization of individual responsibility under Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute in the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. The findings of this research confirms that the threshold for Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute should be lowered to an existing threshold provided by the Understanding of Article 1 of the Rome Statute. Furthermore, this writing has also explained how the individual criminal responsibility will be actualized for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.