Incorporating more strongly environmental concerns into foreign and security policy is a task, which activists, researchers, and politicians have attempted for a number of years. On the European level, the European Parliament adopted the so-called 'Theorin-Resolution' in 1999, which calls for a more prominent role of the environment in foreign and security affairs. In the spirit of this resolution, the 'Greening European Security' (GES) initiative of the Institute for Environmental Security (IES) hosted a conference at the European Parliament in Brussels on 6-7 December.

At the conference, the findings of four working groups (predicting instability; preventing conflict; building peace; and recovery and transition) on environment in foreign and security affairs was presented to an audience made up of representatives from various national governments, EU bodies, international organisations, NGOs and research institutes. Additionally, officials from NATO, UNDP, UNEP, OSCE, and the US Armed Forces outlined how their respective organisations are incorporating issues of environmental security. Participants called for more coherence and coordination among and within EU bodies and the international community. They also demanded to more strongly mainstream environment and natural resources into conflict prevention and development policies. Finally, participants saw an inherent communication problem with conflict prevention: If prevention is successful and no conflict occurs, it is usually impossible to prove that this success is due to specific prevention measures. Based on the deliberations of the working groups and the input from the conference, a final report is currently in preparation and is scheduled to be released by late 2006. Workshop participants hope this will lead to a renewal and strengthening of the Theorin-Mandate. (by Achim Maas)

For more information on the conference, please see http://www.envirosecurity.org/ges/conference

For the Theorin-Resolution, please see http://www.envirosecurity.org/ges/TheorinResolution28Jan1999.pdf

Published in:ECC-Newsletter, December 2006