From environmental harm to ecological reconciliation: rethinking environmental peacebuilding through international law
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Here, I examine how the Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (Special Jurisdiction for Peace; JEP) in Colombia has developed innovative legal approaches to address environmental harm in armed conflict, including by recognizing Indigenous and Afro-Colombian territories as victims. I argue that the JEP demonstrates how international law can be reinterpreted through legal pluralism and, when read through the lens of ecological reconciliation, can enable more holistic responses to social-ecological harm in post-conflict settings. International law governing armed conflict and peacebuilding is fragmented, anthropocentric, and state-centric, and is often ill-suited to capture the cumulative and relational dimensions of environmental destruction. Drawing on international humanitarian law, international criminal law, Colombian constitutional law, and ethnic legal traditions, the JEP broadens the scope of legally relevant environmental harm and moves beyond existing international law by recognizing territories as victims. Using doctrinal legal analysis, I introduce ecological reconciliation as a conceptual lens that emphasizes the repair of relationships among communities, ecosystems, and cultural-spiritual systems disrupted by armed conflict. I show how the JEP operationalizes this approach through intercultural dialogue, interjurisdictional coordination, and evidentiary practices that integrate Indigenous and Afro-Colombian knowledge systems to address structural environmental harm arising from armed conflict. The Colombian experience offers important insights for international law and environmental peacebuilding by illustrating how legal frameworks can enable the meaningful inclusion of local and ethnic communities, recognize relational forms of harm, and support reparative processes that advance ecological reconciliation.
Source: Ecology and Society
Author: Britta Sjöstedt
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $975
OpenAlex ID: W7201841420