ABSTRACT
The environmental costs of warfare accelerated in the nineteenth century in line with the rapid increase in military capacity and the strain put on arable resources. The destruction of land and buildings with no military function has always been a facet of war but now was becoming more systematic and more contentious. The 1863 Lieber Code for Union troops fighting in the American Civil War is widely cited as the first codified domestic proscription of looting in war. The Hague Convention became the keystone of International Humanitarian Law (‘War Law’) and still has great relevance today. Of course, however, the liberal optimism that war crimes – including emergent notions of protecting the environment – could be held to account receded as the twentieth century unfolded with a descent into global conflict and total war.
