Mechanisms for Protecting the Environment During Armed Conflicts in International Humanitarian Law and Issues of Their Implementation Into the National Legislation of Uzbekistan

A B S T R A C T This article comprehensively examines the modern international legal mechanisms for protecting the environment during armed conflicts, the issues of states' international legal responsibility for transboundary environmental damage, and the problems of implementing these norms into the national criminal legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan, based on authentic international treaties and judicial practice. Within the scope of the study, a comparative legal analysis was conducted of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the 1976 UN ENMOD Convention, the 1998 Rome Statute, and the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. Using the drainage of the Mesopotamian Marshlands and the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam as historical examples, the international-scale urgency of transboundary ecocide is highlighted. The legal contradictions arising in practice from the "proportionality" criterion under Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute, along with ways to improve it, are thoroughly substantiated. Article 152 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan ("Violation of the Laws and Customs of War") is analyzed, revealing the absence of an independent "ecocide" element and a systemic legal gap, and, drawing on the experience of CIS states — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Ukraine — practical and scholarly proposals for harmonizing national legislation with international standards are developed and summarized in the final conclusions.