Environmental issues and the ENMOD review conference

Although many questions related to protection of the environment had already been raised at the beginning of the nuclear era, it was only in the early 1970s that the international community began to deal with these questions in a specific way. Thus, in the early 1970s, especially after the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held at Stockholm in 1972, the problem of artificial modification of the environment for military or other hostile purposes began to attract increasing international attention. The Declaration adopted by that Conference stated, inter alia, that nations had the responsibility of ensuring that their activities did not damage the environment of other nations. While scientific and technical progress opens up the possibility of influencing the natural environment in beneficial ways, it also makes it possible to use environmental modification techniques for military or other hostile purposes. Concerns with regard to this potential led to efforts to achieve, before the techniques involved had been fully developed by States, an international agreement prohibiting such modification of the environment.

Related Subject(s): Disarmament