Introduction
The ongoing conflict between Iran and US/Israeli forces has proved to have a significant effect on the environment, while also raising serious issues regarding international humanitarian law. What began as targeted strikes on military and nuclear sites has rapidly escalated into a wider regional confrontation, with both sides progressively targeting energy infrastructure. Israeli strikes on Iranian gas and oil sites, including South Pars, alongside Iranian attacks on oil facilities in Gulf states,[1] have had a profound impact on the environment and civilians. This blog examines these attacks through the lens of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I (API) (1977) to determine whether such strikes are compatible with IHL. Energy infrastructure is not purely military; it is essential to hospitals, water systems and food supply chains, meaning its destruction causes mass civilian displacement and long-term environmental damage.
The Legal Framework — Civilian Protection and Energy Infrastructure
Articles 48, 51 and 52 of the API set out the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution.[2] Article 54 explicitly prohibits attacks on objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.[3] Article 52 (2) points out that ‘Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives’[4]. However, this provision creates difficulties where infrastructure is dual-use, serving both military and civilian purposes. As Dinstein notes, the limits of targeting and proportionality remain among the most contested areas of the law of armed conflict, particularly regarding dual-use infrastructure.[5] The attacks on South Pars and Gulf state oil facilities demonstrate this tension. While energy infrastructure may serve military purposes, the simultaneous effects on hospitals, water treatment, and civilian supply chains complicate any characterisation of it as a purely military objective under Article 52(2). Moreover, in an era of real-time social media and satellite imagery, states can no longer credibly claim ignorance of the civilian and environmental consequences of their strikes. When harm is foreseeable and well documented, it is indefensible to argue that the proportionality requirement under Article 51 (5) (b) was genuinely applied.[6] This raises serious questions as to whether these strikes were lawful under API.
Environmental Protection Under IHL — Articles 35(3) and 55 API
Under Articles 35(3) and 55 of API, methods of warfare causing widespread, long-term and severe environmental damage are prohibited.[7] The threshold is extremely high and has never been successfully invoked.Hulme argues that the (WLS) threshold risks rendering environmental protection in armed conflict ineffective in practice.[8] Current attacks on oil infrastructure causing oil fires, toxic spills, and water pollution likely fall below this threshold despite causing serious harm. [9] The devastation in the Gulf War saw over 700 oil wells set ablaze, and 7-9 million barrels spilt into the Persian Gulf.[10] Toxic smoke caused temperatures to drop 5.5 °C below normal across the region, and research as late as 2017 found alarming levels of hydrocarbons still present in sediments, confirming the damage was genuinely long-term.[11] Yet Pentagon lawyers argued the damage didn’t reach the WLS threshold; if that scale of destruction doesn’t warrant a violation, the threshold is effectively meaningless.[12] The 1994 San Remo Manual and ICRC Guidelines acknowledge these gaps yet remain non-binding.[13] Drafted in 1977, API was never designed for modern industrial warfare; South Pars demonstrate this plainly. The law has failed to keep pace.
The Accountability Gap — Is the Framework Sufficient?
War crimes for environmental destruction fall under the Rome Statute, Article 8(2)(b)(iv), which sets an equally high threshold for criminal liability.[14] Yet where violations arguably occur, enforcement remains weak. No state has been prosecuted under IHL specifically for environmental destruction resulting from attacks on energy infrastructure. This is compounded by the fact that neither the US nor Israel has ratified Additional Protocol I or the Rome Statute, thereby deliberately placing two central actors in this conflict outside the frameworks designed to govern their conduct.[15] Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck confirm that while the principles of distinction and proportionality form part of customary international law binding on all states regardless of treaty ratification, enforcement remains inconsistent.[16] The absence of a dedicated war crimes mechanism underscores how rarely accountability is meaningfully pursued. The ILC’s 2022 Principles on the Protection of the Environment in Armed Conflict represent a progressive step; however, their non-binding nature limits practical enforceability.[17] The framework exists in principle, but without enforceable mechanisms, accountability for environmental destruction in armed conflict remains aspirational.
The African Dimension — Nigeria as a Parallel Case
This accountability deficit is not confined to the Middle East. In Nigeria, armed groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province are persecuting Christians and Muslims, subjecting civilian communities to systematic attacks, including the burning of churches, forced conversion and even murder solely because of their faith.[18] These attacks raise equally serious questions about the protection of civilians under international law.Even where attacks are carried out by non-state actors, international law may still hold the state responsible if it fails to exercise due diligence,[19] yet as Nigeria demonstrates, this obligation remains unenforced in fragile security contexts. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, alongside the ICCPR, provides a parallel protective framework, yet enforcement gaps persist equally here.[20] If violence is systematic or widespread it may engage crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute,[21] as this post has demonstrated however, prosecution remains theoretical rather than meaningful. Whether in the Persian Gulf or sub-Saharan Africa, the law provides a framework in principle, but the accountability mechanisms needed to give it power remain critically underdeveloped.
Conclusion
International humanitarian law provides a foundation for the protection of civilians and the environment, but as this post has explored, that foundation cannot keep up with the scale of modern industrial conflict. The WLS threshold is too high; dual use infrastructure creates exploitable uncertainty, and accountability mechanisms are too weak. The ILC principles and emerging customary law suggest progress is being made, but reform, particularly a binding instrument on environmental protection in armed conflict, is urgently needed. The situation in both Iran and Nigeria confirms that this is not a regional failure; it is a systemic one.
[1] ‘Israel’s Strike on North Field–South Pars: Energy War and Global Risk’, Middle East Council on Global Affairs, 19 March 2026, https://mecouncil.org/blog_posts/israels-strike-on-north-field-south-pars-energy-war-and-global-risk/accessed 20 April 2026.
[2] Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, 8 June 1977, Articles 48, 51 and 52.
[3] Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, 8 June 1977, Article 54.
[4] Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, 8 June 1977, Article 52(2).
[5] Yoram Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 4th ed, 2022) ‘Lawful Targets of Attack’ p.117 and ‘Protection from Attack of Civilians and Civilian Objects’ p.160.
[6] Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, 8 June 1977, Article 51(5)(b). See also Yoram Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 3rd ed, 2016) for analysis of the proportionality principle.
[7] Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, 8 June 1977, Articles 35(3) and 55.
[8] Karen Hulme, War Torn Environment: Interpreting the Legal Threshold (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, International Humanitarian Law Series Vol. 7, 2004) Part I: ‘The Law’ and Part III: ‘The Results’.
[9] Human Rights Watch, ‘Iran: Israel’s Oil Depot Strikes Endanger Environment, Health’, 13 April 2026, https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/04/13/iran-israels-oil-depot-strikes-endanger-environment-health accessed 20 April 2026.
[10] Environmental Impact of the Gulf Wars, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_Gulf_wars, accessed 12 April 2026. See also IIASA, The Environmental Impacts of the Gulf War 1991, IR-04-019 (2004).
[11] Joydas et al., ‘Macrobenthic community structure in the open waters of the Arabian Gulf’ (2017), confirming persistent hydrocarbon contamination in Gulf sediments since 1991.
[12] William M. Arkin, ‘The Environmental Threat of Military Operations’ in Richard J. Grunawalt, John E. King and Ronald S. McClain (eds), Protection of the Environment During Armed Conflict (International Law Studies, Vol. 69, US Naval War College, 1996) 128. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/ils/vol69/iss1/32/ accessed 20 April 2026.
[13] San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea (1994); ICRC, Guidelines for Military Manuals and Instructions on the Protection of the Environment in Times of Armed Conflict (1994).
[14] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998, Article 8(2)(b)(iv).
[15] Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Volume I: Rules (ICRC/Cambridge University Press, 2005) Introduction, Section on ‘Customary International Humanitarian Law and Treaty Law’.
[16] Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law (ICRC/Cambridge University Press, 2005) — used in Section 3 on customary law and enforcement.
[17] International Law Commission, Principles on the Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflicts, UN Doc A/77/10 (2022).
[18] Human Rights Watch, Nigeria: Boko Haram Attacks on Christians (2022); ‘Islamist Terrorists Kill 32 in Coordinated Attacks on Christian Communities Across Nigeria’, Truth Nigeria, 2 January 2026.
[19] Velásquez Rodríguez v Honduras, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Series C No 4 (29 July 1988); Osman v United Kingdom, European Court of Human Rights, Application No 23452/94 (28 October 1998).
[20] African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 27 June 1981, Articles 4 and 8; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 December 1966, Articles 6 and 18.
[21] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998, Article 7.
