Lecturer: Kutluhan Bozkurt, Doctor of Law, Professor, Head of the Department of Public Law, Professor of the Department of International Law, Gedik University, Istanbul.
In addition to students of Sumy National Agrarian University, law students from Istanbul Gedik University (Istanbul) also joined the lecture.
Today, we are witnessing how armed conflicts and industrial accidents inflict irreparable damage on ecosystems, the climate, and human health. For Ukraine, the full-scale war has demonstrated how environmental destruction becomes not only a humanitarian and economic problem, but also a matter of international responsibility and justice. The topic addressed by Professor Bozkurt is critical and timely.
Over the course of an hour, the lecture participants delved into issues of responsibility for large-scale environmental destruction. The professor focused on treaties, customary international law, general principles, as well as the practice of international courts and tribunals regarding responsibility for the crime of ecocide. Exciting was the identification of gaps and the legal changes needed to ensure adequate environmental protection at the international level.
Professor Bozkurt helped us to navigate these issues by analysing ecocide through the lens of the classical sources of international law, as well as contemporary doctrinal and policy debates.
As a result, all participants gained a deeper understanding of how international law can address large-scale environmental harm and what this means for the future development of international criminal and environmental law.
