[Juan Non-Volokh, 9:15
PM]
WAR & THE ENVIRONMENT: Greenblogger has some interesting posts on the
environmental aspects of war and the reign of Saddam Hussein
here and
here. Environmental damage is one of
the many negative consequences of war (though it is not, in itself, a
reason not to go to war). In the case of the war against Iraq, however,
the United States is fighting a regime that seems willing to engage in
wanton environmental destruction for its own sake -- torching wells,
spilling oil into the gulf, lighting rivers of crude, to say nothing of
Husseins' campaign to commit "ecocide"
against the Marsh Arabs. It seems to me that Hussein's actions
-- both in this war and the last -- might provide the basis for the first
international criminal prosecution for ecological war crimes.
