International legal protection of the environment from criminal acts during armed conflicts

The article is dedicated to revealing the state of legal provision for the international legal protection of the environment from criminal acts during armed conflicts. Attention is drawn to the fact that international legal obligations of states regarding environmental protection during armed conflict are only contained in a few environmental treaties, but simultaneously in special agreements that are applicable in the presence of armed conflict and are sources of international humanitarian law. It is noted that from the general principles of the impact of war on international treaties, it follows that the termination of an international treaty at the onset of war is an exception to the rules, not a mandatory act. According to Articles 61 and 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 regarding impossibility of performance and fundamental change of circumstances, it is established that war is not a basis for the automatic termination of treaty obligations, including environmental ones, by the parties to the conflict who have become parties in peacetime, which is also stated in the Draft Articles on the Impact of Armed Conflicts on Treaties of 2011 prepared by the UN International Law Commission, which includes a reference to a provisional list of treaties whose subject matter implies that they continue to apply during armed conflict, among them – treaties on international environmental protection. The standpoint regarding the necessity of developing a codified international instrument, which would consolidate the currently disparate provisions for regulating environmental protection issues in conditions of armed conflict, compensation for damage caused, etc., as a source of international environmental law, is supported. It would also address existing problems in legal application, such as the narrow and imprecise definition of the threshold level criteria required to prove environmental damage during armed conflict.