Exploring the conflict-environment nexus: an international legal perspective on environmental peacebuilding
Abstract
There is a growing recognition within the international community that addressing natural resource governance and environmental protection as part of peace processes is critical for achieving a durable peace. This is first of all a security imperative, as natural resources have played a key role in fueling, financing and prolonging – mostly internal - armed conflicts over the past decades. Ignoring these connections may endanger a fragile peace: armed conflicts involving natural resources are twice as likely to re-ignite as those that do not. Cooperation in the management of natural resources and the environment can however also provide opportunities for peacebuilding and sustainable development. Environmental restoration projects play an essential role in peacebuilding by serving as confidence-building tools to promote cooperation between affected communities. This lecture explores the contribution of international law to the growing practice of environmental peacebuilding, with an emphasis on regulatory mechanisms that aim to enhance minerals supply chain accountability.
Speaker
Daniëlla Dam-De Jong - Leiden University (The Netherlands)
Bio
Daniëlla Dam-De Jong is Associate Professor and Director of the LL.M. Regular Program at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University. Daniëlla has written and advised extensively on questions of natural resource governance and received a research prize by the Foundation Praemium Erasmianum and an honorary mentioning by the Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award for her dissertation International Law and Governance of Natural Resources in Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations, which has been published (with additions) by Cambridge University Press (2015).