To Repair or Not to Repair: What Are the Questions? (chapter in "Research Handbook on International Law and Environmental Peacebuilding")
Publisher: Elgar
Author(s): Giulia Pinzauti and Merryl Lawry-White
Date: 2023
Topics: Dispute Resolution/Mediation, Governance, Peace Agreements
This chapter is structured as follows: Section 2 examines the intersection between reparation for environmental damage and peacebuilding, including the synergies and tensions between them. Section 3 examines the place of courts and other institutions in adjudicating reparation claims for environmental damage, including within the context of environmental peacebuilding. The analysis also highlights the limitations placed upon these bodies and the circumstances where the existing legal framework may hinder rather than aid environmental peacebuilding. Instances of international tribunals adjudicating environmental damage during conflict and post-conflict are rare—and the questions facing tribunals provide some insight as to why. Yet, while the findings of different bodies in respect of breach and reparation form part of a much larger tapestry of efforts to reduce conflict risks and allow for sustainable use and benefit of the environment, these bodies can play an important role in embedding and upholding the norms they adjudicate in the polity that is being built through the peacebuilding process.