Ecocide caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station dam as a challenge and a chance for international justice

The armed aggression of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine has caused unprecedented destructive changes in the environment, putting our country on the brink of an environmental catastrophe. The culmination of a huge number of environmentally dangerous criminal acts of the aggressor in Ukraine was the undermining of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam on June 6, 2023, which by the nature and scale of environmental consequences fits well into the concept of ecocide. The article examines the legal grounds for criminal prosecution for the relevant crimes, analyzes the array of international environmental legal acts violated as a result of the blowing up of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, as well as international documents establishing responsibility for criminal attacks on the environment during hostilities. Based on the analysis of the previous experience of consideration of environmental cases related to war crimes by the Ukrainian authorities and international judicial bodies, the author concludes that the case of the Kakhovka dam explosion provides the international criminal jurisdiction bodies, primarily the International Criminal Court, with a unique chance to prove for the first time the ability to implement international legal norms on responsibility for crimes against the environment by taking into consideration the case of the environmental consequences of the Kakhovka dam destruction.  Particular attention is paid to determining the capabilities of various jurisdictional instances, namely, in addition to the ICC, the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and a Special ad-hoc criminal tribunal for the consideration of cases of environmental offenses committed as a result of international military operations.

, blowing up of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station dam, war crimes, international justice, International Criminal Court, violation of the laws and customs of war.