Throughout the Conflict Cycle: International Law Commission Principles on Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflicts

Abstract The purpose of the article is to explain how the International Law Commission, when asked to consolidate the legal framework for the ‘Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflicts’, tackled this task: how it defined the topic, what it included and excluded, and how it argued its case. What is the practical relevance of the broad temporal scope of the topic, which seeks to cover the entire lifecycle of armed conflict? What does it mean that no general distinction is made between international and non-international armed conflicts? How has the Commission applied the integrative approach to recognize the interplay of different areas of international law in relation to armed conflicts? The global environmental threats became only more obvious during the decade the work on the topic was ongoing. How did this affect the final outcome and its reception by States?