An Inventory of Conflict and the Environment:
A Conceptual Framework
James R. Lee
School of International Service
American University
Washington, DC 20016
email: jlee@american.edu
tel: 202-885-1691
fax: 202-885-2494
December, 1997
Abstract
This paper creates a categorical inventory of cases that focus
on environment and conflict. It builds on existing sets of
environment and conflict cases to create a pool of information that
is uniquely suited for carrying out research in this area. The
inventory is premised on a conceptual structure that embraces the
idea that, with the changing nature of conflict in the 20th
century, the environment is likely to be a cause or a result of
conflict, especially with respect to civil conflict. This effort,
which identifies 50 cases, is a first step towards creating a
larger inventory that has distinct and quantifiable
characteristics. Breakouts from the cases show that most cases are
international in nature, but also that a substantial portion of
involve civil conflict. Most conflict is over resources, whether
they are particular or general.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
I. ENVIRONMENT AND CONFLICT: A CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEW
II. REAL WORLD PROBLEMS AND AREAS OF INQUIRY
III. THE CONCEPTUAL BASIS FOR AN INVENTORY OF
CONFLICT AND ENVIRONMENT
A. Conflict and Environment Inventories
B. Conflict Inventories
C. Environment Inventories
D. A Conceptual Framework for a General
Inventory of Conflict and
Environment
IV. THE INVENTORY OF CONFLICT AND ENVIRONMENT (ICE)
A. The Cases and their Attributes
B. Durations
C. Conflict
D. Environment
E. Parties Involved
V. CONCLUSION
Bibliography
Appendices
INTRODUCTION
Many now acknowledge that there is a relation between the
environment and conflict. Will this realization lead to better
treatment of the environment and the reduction in the number of
conflicts that grow out of it or will it simply increase the
likelihood of environmental conflict? Answering these and other
questions requires a general basis for comparison and contrast.
What is needed is an categorical inventory of cases in conflict and
environment cases.
To that end, Part I of this paper provides a conceptual
overview of the relationship between environment and conflict.
Part II describes discusses how real world problems often lead to
intellectual discourse and to policy actions with respect to
environment and conflict. Part III provides a basic conceptual
framework for an international conflict and environment inventory.
Part IV offers a preliminary set of environment and conflict cases,
as well as some initial breakouts from these cases. Finally, in
Part V, the paper offers some thoughts on using this inventory to
affect real world problems of environment and conflict.
I. ENVIRONMENT AND CONFLICT: A CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEW
"The term conflict usually refers to a condition in which one
identifiable group of human beings (whether tribal, ethnic,
linguistic. cultural. religous, socioeconomic, political, or other)
is engaged in conscious opposition to or more identifiable human
groups ebcause these groups are pursuing what are or appear to be
incompatable goals." (Dougherty and Pfalzgraff, Jr., 1981: 182).
Conflict within states, especially since the end of the Cold War,
is a growing problem, especially in states where there are more
than one nation of peoples (ethnic or religious groups, for
example). This paper views conflict on a state-defined dimension
and active opposition may take place between states or within them.
Environment, in the sense here, includes the use of natural
resources and human practices which change natural conditions. It
can include a wide variety of issues, such as source-related issues
(access and conservation) and sink-related issues (waste and
pollution). Arguably, this distinction is purely semantic when
viewed from a dynamic context: sink problems are such because they
damage sources. While environment is a broad term, the context
here is one significant to the interests of states and nations,
ranging from protecting a single resource to claiming an entire
area and its resources.
Both source and sink conflicts have occurred throughout human
history. With respect to sources, for example, the cedar trees
of Lebanon were much heralded -- and valued -- in antiquity (2,000
bc) for their beauty, fragrance, commercial value, and utility in
building. The Bible itself extols the virtues of the cedar. The
cedar was so valued by Babylonia and other ancient states that they
sent warring parties into cedar forests, not just to overcome the
inhabitants, but also to cut down the trees and bring them back as
spoils of war. Later, the Phoenicians and Greeks used the cedars
to build warships which facilitated their military, economic, and
maritime empires. With respect to sinks, for example, the Romans
"cleansed" vanquished populations (such as the Carthagenians) by
poisoning their wells and fields with salt (Romm, 1993: 16).
A first step in broaching the intellectual study of the
environment and conflict, as in other fields of study, is to
develop an inventory of cases. This inventory then can form the
basis for comparison and contrast. Such an inventory can have an
important policy component because it may aid in the identification
of common environemtnal factors in conflicts.
II. THE CONCEPTUAL BASIS FOR AN INVENTORY OF
CONFLICT AND ENVIRONMENT
This section describes existing conflict and environment
inventories as well as separate inventories of conflict and of
environment. From these prior efforts, it describes a conceptual
framework for a general conflict and environment inventory.
A. Conflict and Environment Inventories
A natural place to begin is in examining existing inventories
where conflict and the environment are factors. Four efforts (at
least) have looked directly at the environment and conflict
conjunction using a case format. The conceptual frameworks and
cases they used are of interest here.
1. Thomas Homer-Dixon
"[E]nvironmental scarcities are already contributing to violent
conflicts in many parts of the developing world. Moreover, these
conflicts may be the early signs of an upsurge in violence in
coming decades...that is caused or aggravated by environmental
change."
According to Thomas Homer-Dixon, some potential effects of
environmental change include:
o shifts in the "balance of power between states either
regionally or globally, causing instability that could
lead to war,"
o an increase in the "gap between rich and poor nations,
with the poor then violently confronting the rich for a
fairer share of the world's wealth," and
o conflict when countries do not "go along with
agreements to protect the global environment or that are
'free riders' letting other countries absorb the costs of
environmental protection."
Past conflict will not always provide a moel for future
copnflict. "Future violence arising from environmental change will
generally not follow the age-old patter of conflicts over scarce
resources, where one group or nation tries to seize the water, oil
or minerals of another." This is because, in part, the resources
in question are common goods, held on an international level, and,
in part, due to "social effects of environmental scarcity such as
slow population displacement and economic disruption, that can in
turn lead to clashes between ethnic groups and rebellion." These
conflicts "may have critical implications for the security
interests of rich and poor nations alike."
There are several types of environment and conflict
configurations. The first is scarcity conflict, specifically those
over river water, fish and cropland. However, Homer-Dixon suggests
these will not be as common as the other two. The second group
includes group-identity conflicts resulting from "large scale
movements of populations caused by environmental scarcity."
Third, there are deprivation conflicts, which occur "as poor
societies produce less wealth because of environmental problems,
their citizens probably become increasingly angered by the widening
gap between their actual standard of living and the standard they
feel they deserve. The rate of change is key: the faster the
economic deterioration, the greater the discontent."
Measures that have been taken to deflect conflict over the
environemnt include international agreements on protecting the
environment. Further, "[i]nternational financial agencies, like
the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the International
Monetary Fund, have become much more aware of the intricate
relationship between economic development and environmental
scarcity."
Val Percival and Thomas Homer-Dixon (1996) provide seven case
studies where environmental scarcity directly relates to violent
conflict. They also provide five other instances in which these
two factors indirectly intersect. The case studies by Percival and
Homer-Dixon are organized on the basis of same three criteria.
First, there is a description of the nature of the conflict.
Second, there is discussion of the environmental factors in the
case. Finally, there is exploration of the links between
environmental scarcity and violent conflict (see Table 1).
2. Norman Myers and Malin Falkenmark
Norman Myers looks at seven cases where environment and
conflict come together. These cases are mostly domestic in
orientation and often relate to population pressures and access to
land. Like Homer-Dixon, Myers focuses on water in the Middle East,
deforestation in the Philippines, population problems in El
Salvador, and land-use changes in Mexico (see Table 2). Malin
Falkenmark identifies several cases where water issues are related
to conflict (see Table 3).
Table 1
Cases Examined by Percival and Homer-Dixon
Case Studies Case Summaries
1. Bangladesh-India 1. El Salvador-Honduras
2. Chiapas, Mexico 2. Haiti
3. Gaza 3. Peru
4. Pakistan 4. The Philippines
5. Rwanda 5. The West Bank
6. Senegal-Mauritania
7. South Africa
Source: Percival and Homer-Dixon (1996)
Table 2
Cases Examined by Norman Myers
1. water in the Middle East
2. land degradation in Ethiopia and Ogaden war
3. deprivation in Sub-Sahara Africa
4. deforestation in the Philippines
5. land use and India
6. over-population and El Salvador
7. land-use change in Mexico
Source: Myers, 1995.
Table 3
Cases Examined by Malin Falkenmark
1. Jordan River
2. Ganges River
3. Nile River
4. Rhine River
5. Colorado River
6. Ussuri River
7. Shatt-al-Arab
Source: Malin Falkenmark, "Fresh Waters as a Factor in Strategic
Policy and Action," 88-89
3. Arthur Westling
Arthur Westling provides a framework and an initial set of
cases involving natural resources and conflict.
The cases are organized under four areas of interest: (a)
Particulars, (b) Description, (c) Natural Resource Aspects, and (d)
References (Table 4). In the "Particulars" section, there are a
number of measurable attributes. Using this framework, Westling
describes 12 initial cases in an environment and conflict inventory
(see Table 5).
Table 4
Conceptual Framework of Arthur Westling
(a) Particulars
(1) Hemisphere
(2) Land Mass
(3) Habitat
(4) War type of interstate, colonial or civil.
(5) Fatality classes based on L.F. Richardson, 1960,
logarithmic scale
(b) Description
(c) Natural Resource Aspects
(d) References
Source: Appendix 2: Arthur H. Westling, "Wars and Skirmishes
Involving Natural Resources: A Selection from the 20th Century,"
204-210 in Westling, ed. (1988).
Table 5
Cases Examined by Arthur Westling
1. World War I, 1914-18
2. Chaco War, 1932-35
3. World War II, 1939-45
4. Algerian War of Independence, 1954-62
5. Congo Civil War, 1960-64
6. Third Arab-Israel War, 1967
7. Nigerian Civil War, 1967-70
8. El Salvador-Honduras War, 1969
9. Anglo-Iceland Cod War, 1972-73
10. Paracel Island Clash, 1974
11. Western Sahara Revolt, 1976-
12. Falkland-Malvinas Conflict, 1982
Source: Appendix 2: Arthur H. Westling, "Wars and Skirmishes
Involving Natural Resources: A Selection from the 20th Century,"
204-210 in Westling, ed. (1988).
4. Michael Renner
Michael Renner includes conflict where "environmental threats
emanating from other nations, such as pollutants flowing across
their frontiers through the air of water, or cataclysmic floods
unleashed by denuded watersheds far from their borders."
{Pollutants or sink problems are less prevalent than soruce
problems. "Yet environmental degradation imperils nations' most
fundamental aspect of security by undermining the natural support
systems on which all of human activity depends." Some more
directly tie the environment to conflict. "Reliance on food
imports compromises a nation's sovereignty in ways that are
unaffected by even the strongest of armed forces."
Source or sink problems are and important to a country's
antional interest precisely because "Because environmental
degradation and pollution respect no human-drawn borders, they
jeopardize not only the security of the country in which they
occur, but also that of others, near and far." These problems
are more likely to be regional in nature.
"Border-transcending environmental degradation most
immediately affects neighboring countries...[R]ivers play
an important role in territorial
demarcation...[W]atersheds frequently fall under the
jurisdiction of several hostile states. An estimated 40
percent of the world's population depends on drinking
water, irrigation, or hydropower on the 214 major river
systems shared by two or more countries; 12 of these
waterways are shared by five or more nations." (31)
Michael Renner provides an inventory of case of environment
and conflict that stem from disputes over water (see Table xx).
Table 6
Unresolved International Water Issues, Mid-eighties
Rivers
Countries involved
in Dispute
Subject of Dispute
Nile
Egypt, Ethiopia,
Sudan
Siltation, flooding,
water flow/diversion
Euphrates, Tigris
Iraq, Syria, Turkey
Reduced water flow,
salinization and
irrigation
Jordan, Yarmuk,
Litani, West Bank
aquifer
Israel, Jordan,
Syria, Lebanon
Water flow/diversion
Indus, Sutlei
India, Pakistan
Irrigation
Brahmaputra, Ganges
Bangladesh, India
Siltation, flooding,
water flow
Salween/ Nu Jiang
Burma, China
Siltation, flooding
Mekong
Kampuchea, Laos,
Thailand, Vietnam
Water flow, flooding
Paran
Argentina, Brazil
Dam, land inundation
Lauca
Bolivia, Chile
Dam, salinization
Rio Grande, Colorado
Mexico, United
States
Salinization, water
flow, agrochemical
pollution
Great Lakes
Canada, Unites
States
Water diversion
Rhine
France, Netherlands,
Switzerland, West
Germany
Industrial pollution
Maas, Schelde
Belgium, Netherlands
Salinization,
industrial pollution
Elbe
Czechoslovakia, East
and West Germany
Industrial pollution
Werra/Weser
East Germany, West
Germany
Industrial pollution
Szamos
Hungary, Romania
Industrial pollution
Renner covers a wide range of types of configurations between
conflict and environment other than simple demands for water.
First, displacing people by water projects can lead to ethnic
conflicts than can cross borders. Second, there are demands for
specific products that lead to conflict including conflcits between
Spain and Canada and Iceland and the United Kingdom over fish.
Third, nternational refugees rose from 1 million in 1960s, to 3
million in the 1970s, to about 27 million in 1995. Fianlly,
general environmental degradation is a problem. Renner devotes an
entire chapter that focus on case studies of environmental
degradation and conflict in Rwanda and Chiapas. Renner's
conclusion is that the military is ineffective in these two
conflicts and security needs to move from a focus on national
security to one based on humans security.
B. The Scope of Existing Environment and Conflict Cases
Conflict need not always be harmful to the environment and can
occur over attempts to protect it. Bruce Byers lists some cases
where armed forces actually engaged in some conflict on behalf of
the environment, specifically to protect bio-diversity and
sometimes focused on a few specific species.
These prior efforts provide some conceptual basis for an
environment and conflict inventory and some of the cases that might
belong to it. They are, however, limited in several respects and
these limitations can serve to guide the construct of the
inventory. The first need is simply for a greater number of cases
than in the prior efforts, if nothing else to provide a bigger
picture of what falls within this research domain. The second need
is the for cases that are organized on the basis of more
identifiable attributes that can be used to group cases for later
analysis. The research in this area has lagged due in part to the
lack of systematic information needed for such research.
As far as modern warfare is concerned, however, there
appears to be little systematic evidence. For instance,
the large Handbook of War Studies (Midlarsky, 1989) does
not list 'ecology', 'environment', 'land', 'raw
materials', or 'water' in its index. Neither do such
classical studies of war as Richardson (1960) or Wright
(1965) or a recent reader (Vasquez and Henehan, 1992).
Within the largest modern research project on warm the
Correlates of War project, one article finds limited
support for the idea that population pressure may be a
factor in war initiation (Bremer, et al, 1979).
Given these limitations, it may be fruitful to examine
existing inventories on conflict and environment issues for areas
of overlap. They may well provide a more developed basis to draw
from for this effort. The next section examines conflict
inventories and the following section environment inventories.
C. Conflict Inventories
1. David Singer
The premier inventory on international conflict, the
Correlates of War (COW), was built by scholars at the University of
Michigan, especially J. David Singer (Singer and Small, 1972).
COW, however, builds on earlier efforts by Quincy Wright (1965),
L.F. Richardson (1960b), Pitrim Sorokin (1937), and provides the
basis for other efforts by Ruth Leger Sivard (1985) and James Lee
(1986). Stuart Bremer has greatly extended COW in the Multilateral
International Disputes (MID) inventory. MID is much more
inclusive in scope of cases than COW, with thousands of cases, and
does not have a minimum casualty level as a pedigree for inclusion.
The COW inventory grew out of research needs: nothing
similar to it existed as a basis for the scientific study of
conflict. Researchers, therefore, by compiling an inventory of
information on the frequency, magnitude, severity, and intensity of
international wars in the period from the end of the Napoleonic
Wars (1816). These criteria are useful here. The mere
identification of conflicts provides a basis for discussion. COW
also identifies the duration of the conflict, the participants, the
number of military deaths resulting from the conflict and other
related categories. The able below shows the COW inventory, by the
conflicts they include, their duration, and the estimated number of
deaths. One major difference among the conflict inventories is
that COW alone includes only military deaths and isolates civil
wars into a separate data set.
2. Stuart Bremer
Stuart Bremer has compiled and made availabe on the Web an
extensive set of conflicts called the database of "Multilateral
International Disputes" or MID. Bremer has identified and
categorized 3,974 cases of conflict in the form of disputes. The
essential attributes the fields include the following (see Table
xx).
Table xx
Attributes in Bremer's Conflict Inventory
1. Dispute Number
2. Start Day of Dispute
3. Start Month of Dispute
4. Start year of dispute
5. End day of dispute
6. End Month of Dispute
7. End Year of Dispute
8. Outcome of Dispute
9. Settlement of Dispute
10. Fatality Level of Dispute
11. Maximum Duration of Dispute
12. Minimum Duration of Dispute
13. Highest Action in Dispute
14. Hostility Level of Dispute
15. Reciprocted Dispute
16. Number of States on Side A
17. Number of States on Side B
18. Version Number of Dataset
3. Nazli Choucri
Nazli Choucri tested three related propositions pertaining to
the relationship between population growth and conflict. Inherent
in this discussion is environemnt, since presumably population
levels exceeding resources is a key aspect of the conflict. One
proposition tested whether, if population demands exceed resources,
international conflict is likely to result. A second proposition
tested for sources of demand, determined by three factors: the size
of the population, the level of industrialization, and the state of
technological development. A final proposition tested for the
relationship between technological development and conflict over
resources in from remote places. Some statistical evidence
supported all three propositions.
Choucri tested a final proposition: do countries facing
resource problems compete for resources which are manifest via
commercial actions (trade, investment, etc.)? Again, the answer
appeared to be yes. Thus, conflict and environment may be indirect
in relation rather than direct and may have a dynamic component.
[A] vicious cycle sets in: increasing population leads to
political instability; a situation of political
instability may then intensify population pressure in its
turn by making it difficult for the national government
to undertake effective programs to contain or reduce the
resulting pressures on resources (Chourcri, 1973: 165).
Role of Population in Local Conflicts (table 8-4, 106-107)
1. Background Factor
2. Minor Irritant
3. Major Irritant
4. Central Importance
5. Sole Determinant
by
1. Size
2. Change
3. Distribution
4. Composition
C. Environment Inventories
Virtually no large-scale inventories of environment cases
exists, although there are abundant data sets (Office of Technology
Assessment, 1992; Charnovitz, 1993, 37-53; Zaelke, Housman, and
Stanley). The U.S. International Trade Commission reported to
the Committee on Finance of the U.S. Senate on international
agreements related to species and eco-systems (U.S. International
Trade Commission, 1991). Roughly some 300 treaties are noted in
this study. The inventories are not at a policy level that ties
environemnt with the type of inventory that has been discussed so
far.
James Lee began the Trade Environment Database (TED) Project
as a large-scale inventory of environment cases. It itends to
provide a common base for research and policy analysis of
environment cases, especially those where conflict is a factor.
The TED projects have produced more than 400 categorical case
studies on trade and environment. These studies cover a wide
variety of dimensional and geographic incidences with
envirornmental causes and consequences. Cases include a textual
description of events and are ordered on the basis of 28 different
coded categories that span four dimensional aggregates or clusters:
Law, Geography, Trade, and Environment. The TED cases are
available through and Internet site on the World Wide Web (WWW).
Some of the TED categories are useful here. For example, TED
includes an identification of the parties involved in the case, the
relevant case status, the scope of case impacts, the type of
environmental problem, the industry at issue, the type of habitat
in the case, and other criteria.
E. A Conceptual Framework for a General
Inventory of Conflict and
Environment
This section builds on all of the prior efforts to create an
Inventory of Conflict and Environment (ICE). For its conceptual
framework ICE integrates some basic concepts from an inventory that
is environment-oriented (TED) with an inventory that is conflict-
oriented (COW), and drawing from the efforts of Westling and
Percival and Homer-Dixon. For the cases, the ICE draws from all of
the earlier efforts to identify an initial data set.
How does one decide if a conflict case should be included
because of the presence of an environmental component to it (or
vice-versa)? Most cases of conflict relate to environment in a
general way because they are often about resources or access to
resources. Most environment cases represent instances where some
differences due to the problem arise. Cases are selected where
environment is an identifiable factor in conflict and corresponds
to a clear set of attributes in the conceptual framework.
The cases are identified on the basis of the environmental
problem at issue. Here, the cases belong to a subset of resource
concentration problems or sources, the second to a subset called
resource depletion problems or sinks.
The types of cases are also identified according to the type
of conflict in the case, where they are categorized as being
between or within states. This interaction can occur at high and
low levels of intensity. The two major parties in each case are
also identified, with "Party A" the case attacker and "Party B" the
case defender. This is more a legal than a military definition.
Most likely the conflict is a dynamic situation between the two
parties. Parties may be states, groups of state, or groups within
a state. Table 8 shows the basic framework for describing the ICE
cases.
Table 8 about here
Format for the ICE Cases
Case Number
Case Identifier
Case Description
I. Case Background
1. Abstract
2. Description
3. Duration
From Stuart Bremer, Multilateral International Disputes
a. Start
b. End
4. Location
Continent
Region
State
5. Actors
II. Environment Aspects
6. Type of Environmental Problem
a. Source Problems
(1) Habitat
Deforestation [DEFOR]
Habitat [HABIT]
Resource [RESRCE]
Territory [TERR]
(2) Species Loss
Land [SPLL]
Air [SPLA]
Sea [SPLS]
b. Sink Problems
(1) Pollution
Air [POLA]
Land [POLL]
Sea [POLS]
(2) Waste
Air [POLA]
Land [POLL]
Sea [POLS]
7. Type of Habitat (5 types)
a. Dry
b. Cool
c. Temperate
d. Tropical
e. Ocean
8. Act and Harm Sites
Table 1
Combinations of Act and Harm Sites (modified)
Site of Act Site of Harm Example
(1) Nation A Nation A Brazil deforests the Amazon
(2) Nation A Nation B Chernobyl disaster
(3) Nation A Commons Russian radioactive dumping in Arctic
(4) Commons Commons Over-fishing of salmon
(5) Commons Nation B Lebanon waste dumping
Source: Christopher Stone
III. Conflict Aspects
9. Type of Conflict
a. Low
b. High
10. Level of Conflict
a. Civil
(1) Cases where there are human rights abuses and sporadic conflict
[CIVLOW] and where there is an ongoing civil conflict [CIVHIGH].
b. Inter-State
(1) Cases where states come into conflict over a specific resource
and conflict occurs, in low or high levels of conflict. [WARLOW]
[WARHIGH]
(2) Cases where potential conflict includes retaliation against the
environmental. [WARTHREAT]
(3) Cases where conflict, or the preparation for it, provides an
opportunity for environmental damage. [WARHARM]
11. Fatalities
From Stuart Bremer, Multilateral International Disputes
IV. Environment Conflict Link
12. Environment-Conflict Dynamics
a. Direct
b. Indirect
Causal Loop
13. Scope
a. Multilateral
b. Region
c. Bilateral
d. State
e. Substate
14. Outcome of Dispute
Adapted From Stuart Bremer, Multilateral International Disputes
a. Victory
b. Yield
c. Stalemate
d. Comprimise
V. Related Information and Sources
15. Related ICE or TED Cases
16. Relevant Literature and Websites
