The ecology of war and peace : marginalising slow and structural violence in international law

Author / Creator

Cusato, Eliana, 1974- author

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Online

Physical

Summary

"1 Introduction: International Law, Violence and Visibility 'If a war leaves in its wake terrifying polluted lands and mangled genetic codes, any victory will be pyrrhic, as death by indirection be...

"1 Introduction: International Law, Violence and Visibility 'If a war leaves in its wake terrifying polluted lands and mangled genetic codes, any victory will be pyrrhic, as death by indirection becomes the ultimate form of friendly fire. No homeland can be secure if we convert the earth into a biological weapon that threatens biology itself'.1 1.1 International law, violence, and visibility: war's hidden socio-ecological legacy At the turn of the 20th century, scientists in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US started studying how chemical herbicides could be used to increase agricultural productivity.2 This early research led to the isolation of the hormone that controls plant growth and its synthetic reproduction. Scientists found that, while in small doses the artificial hormone greatly stimulated plant growth, in large doses it inhibited the plants development.3 During World War II the full military and agricultural applications of these herbicides (and other pesticides, such as the insecticide DDT) were studied in academic institutions in the US and the United Kingdom,4 as well as, infamously, in Nazi concentration camps by the German chemical corporation IG Farben"--

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