Law in the Jungle: Navigating Rebel Environmental Governance and the Legal Legacies of War in Colombia
Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Environmental harm and grievances often lie at the roots of armed conflicts or exacerbate existing ones, underscoring the urgent need for legal frameworks that address environmental needs during hostilities and their enduring implications after war. Environmental governance is widely recognized as a core public function of states; consequently, legal scholarship has traditionally approached it through a narrow, state-centric lens—one that mirrors the architecture of international law itself. This perspective overlooks the complex realities of governance in conflict-affected territories and obscures the roles of other actors, particularly armed non-state actors (ANSAs). Yet some ANSAs exercise state-like authority and maintain control over populations and natural resources. Their environmental governance practices, the legality of their actions, and their implications for post-conflict transitions remain largely unexamined. This research, therefore, asks: How can international law meaningfully engage with armed non-state actors to address environmental needs and promote transformative peace in territories once under their control?To answer this question, the thesis first exposes the othering processes that narrow the ecological perspective of war, preventing the recognition of ANSAs as environmental governance actors and hindering constructive engagement with their normative practices. Drawing from rebel governance theory, legal pluralism, and internal legitimacy theory, it contributes to the development of the concept of rebel law, capturing the normative orders ANSAs construct when exercising state-like functions. Using the case of the FARC-EP in Colombia, the research demonstrates that certain armed groups not only employ coercion but also establish complex regulatory systems governing the access, use, and protection of natural resources. These rebel environmental orders unsettle conventional legal hierarchies by showing how law-making can emerge beyond the state.Building on this, the thesis advances a dialectical model of engagement between ANSAs and international law. It moves beyond the traditional focus on ensuring compliance with pre-existing norms to recognize their potential law-making capacity. By positioning ANSAs as contributors to the “greening” of international law, it expands the boundaries of legal personality and advocates for the recognition of their duty to uphold the right to a healthy environment under specific conditions.Finally, the research introduces the concept of rebel environmental legal legacies of war, referring to the rebel normative residues that persist after conflict and shape post-war environmental governance. It contends that transitional justice mechanisms must engage with these legacies to achieve genuine guarantees of non-repetition—ones that address not only human rights violations but also environmental grievances that perpetuate cycles of violence.In doing so, this thesis reimagines the architecture of international law through a pluralist and environmentally conscious lens, challenging state-centric orthodoxies and recognizing the multiplicity of actors shaping law in both war and peace.
DOI: 10.82308/55880
Author: Baron-Mendoza, Laura
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7165485634