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|b The environmental damages problem is not a new issue in these days, but the problem is the increase of these damages, which requires hard work from international community to protect the earth. This problem becomes one of the biggest problems that threaten the environment. Indeed, this problem is global issue, so that international community interests in it, and states have signed many treaties relates to the environment such as United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea LOS Convention, 1982, and convention on civil liability for damage resulting from activities dangerous to the environment, Laguna, 1993. Recently, legal studies started researching these issues, trying to find legal solution to protect the environment. These studies tried to talk about states responsibility under international environmental law, trying to criminalize states acts against the environment. States can harm the environment, but individuals consider the biggest destroyers for the environment. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to focus on private individuals who commit international environmental crimes intentionally. In fact, individual criminal responsibility needs more studies to find legal solution to prohibit individuals' acts against the earth. The principle of individual criminal responsibility appears in international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and in international law in general. Indeed, individuals may be sanctioned directly under international law, regardless of any national law that the individual belong. However, this principle is ambiguous under international environmental law. In fact, states have agreed that individuals and states who commit crimes recognize to be sanctioned criminally under international humanitarian law. However, individuals who commit environmental crimes are not responsible, only states are accountable of environmental crimes. In fact, there are no entire treaties or universal declaration deals with individual criminal responsibility against environmental crimes as in international humanitarian law or international criminal law in general. Nevertheless, there are many treaties includes some articles related to this issue. In this paper, I will analyze some of these articles; to emphasize that individual should be criminally responsible under international environmental law. This paper emphasizes that the individual should be criminally responsible under international environmental law as in international humanitarian law in war time and peace time as well. To reach this theory, this paper analyzes some treaties and conventions under international law that related to the environment. It argues that the environment has rights to protect against individual crimes under international environmental law as it is under international humanitarian law throughout consideration of the individual responsibility for environmental crimes in the time of peace through the reflection of individual responsibility under United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, individual responsibility under the convention for the conservation of Antarctic marine living resource, individual responsibility in jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice individual responsibility under the convention on civil liability for damage resulting from activities dangerous to the environment, and individual responsibility under International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage. Also, in the time of war, the paper considers individual responsibility under Nuremburg trial, individual responsibility under genocide convention, individual responsibility under Hague convention, individual responsibility under Geneva Convention, and individual responsibility under Rome Statute. In fact, international conventions related to international environment law emphasize that individual should be criminally responsible under international environmental law as in international humanitarian law, and international criminal law in general. The development of individual rights under international law occurred at the same time that international law began to enforce duties on individuals in their private capacity. The most famous example of this phenomenon was the imposition of criminal responsibility on individuals by Nuremberg tribunals formed by the victorious Allied Powers in World War II. International environmental law, like any other system of international law, ultimately regulates human conduct which brings rights and imposes responsibilities. Many international conventions emphasize that individual should be responsible for any environmental crimes. Indeed, individuals must be criminally responsible for their environmental crimes, and the international community should find great instrument to prosecute individuals internationally for any damage against the environment.
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