Criminal responsibility for ecocide resulting from the military aggression of Russia

Abstract

Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine has led to the destruction of natural resources, ecosystems, and infrastructure. These actions have violated international principles of environmental safety. The hostilities have caused serious damage to nature reserves, wetlands, and soil. Air and water pollution have a transboundary effect. Russia’s actions threaten future generations and the climate. That is why the creation of a mechanism to ensure environmental safety is an urgent problem for world civilization. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the criminal responsibility for ecocide in the context of Russia’s military aggression and identify the existing legislative problems in this area and ways to overcome them. The methodology of the study of ecocide and its connection with Russia’s military aggression includes analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, dialectic, analytics, analogy, abstraction, and generalization. These methods help to reveal the essence of the problem, establish legal norms, and develop recommendations and priorities for regulating ecocide.