At UNEA-7, PAX is organizing a Green Room event “Making Progress on Nature and Peace at UNEA: From Policy to Action”, which will take place on December 10. This event will reflect on UNEA’s achievements and challenges in addressing the environmental dimensions of conflicts and will explore opportunities for further engagement. Bringing together speakers from conflict-affected countries, UN Environmental Programme, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Toxics, and environmental and peace NGOs, this cross-sectoral discussion will examine practical pathways for UNEA to contribute to the coherent environment, peace and security agenda – through its own initiatives and in synergy with broader international processes.
Learn more at the event webpage with participation link.
There is broader recognition of the linkages between environment, peace and security at UNEA, including side events on Nature-based Solutions for Peace (a topic on which PAX collaborated with UNEP in 2024 through the development of the Catalogue on NbS for Peace and Security) and discussions on technical guidance for assessing conflict-driven environmental damage. Meanwhile, there are also several resolutions under negotiation where NGOs are pushing to include conflict language, including those on environmental crimes and on anti-microbial resistance (AMR). The latter remains a significant problem in conflict-affected areas, as war functions both as a source of AMR due to pollution and as a driver due to the displacement of people.
Since 2016, PAX has been supporting advocacy for UNEA resolutions that address various environmental dimensions of armed conflicts. The work started in 2015 with Resolution 2/15 on the protection of the environment in areas affected by armed conflict, which, inter alia, supported awareness-raising on the topic and ensured broader legal discussions in support of the International Law Commission’s work on the PERAC Principles that were subsequently published in 2022. In 2017, in the wake of the destruction caused by the Islamic State in Iraq, PAX supported the Iraqi government-led UNEA Resolution 3/1 on conflict pollution, which strengthened UNEP’s mandate to work on post-conflict recovery efforts. And in 2024, Ukraine led the adoption of UNEA Resolution 6/12 on environmental assistance and recovery in areas affected by armed conflict, which can serve as an important stepping stone for data collection on conflict-related environmental damages to inform rapid clean-up, remediation and reconstruction.
Yet, UNEA has potential to do more to address the interlinkages between the environment, peace and security, both in terms of translating existing commitments into action and through new policy initiatives. And this is why the attention to these matters remains as crucial as ever.
