Armed conflict threatens and harms wildlife. The legal framework protecting wildlife against such harm is fragmented and weak. International environmental law regulates the sustainable exploitation of wildlife, while international humanitarian law protects the environment only against excessive damage. In this lecture, I provide an overview of the rules and the interaction between these two principal regimes. Discussing the relation between armed conflict and wildlife trafficking, I highlight the securitization of IEL. Critical initiatives to improve implementation of the law and criminalization proposals will be discussed as well. Dr. Veerle Platvoet is a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. In 2025, she defended her PhD on wildlife law at the University of Helsinki and has a background in global environmental law. Her current research continues to focus on legal questions on animal protection and its interaction with different regimes in international law. Platvoet is a board member of the Dutch Association of Animal Rights Law, review editor at the Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy and member of the Helsinki Animal Law Centre and the Multispecies Collective.

Exclusive guided tour for students through the exhibition at the NS Documentation Center. Registration details below. The exhibition "...to leave a space in which the din of war might die down" explores the long-lasting effects of wars since 1945. In their works, international artists reflect on experiences of violence, destruction, and reconstruction. From the perspectives of migration—to or from Europe—they tell stories of loss, flight, and new beginnings. And they speak of the challenge of carrying on with life. How do experiences of war shape the lives of future generations in pluralistic, (post-)migrant societies? What remains—and what is passed on? Given the ubiquity of wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan, the Congo, and other parts of the world, these questions seem immediate and close to home. The conflicts and polarizations associated with war are interconnected in our globalized world and are not limited to specific places or time periods. Eighty years after the end of World War II, it is clear that the hope for peace associated with the postwar order has remained unfulfilled. Today, the consequences of armed conflicts are forcibly suppressed through fortified border regimes—in the process, not only territories are demarcated, but also the boundaries of empathy. In light of this, how can we, within a diverse society, find a language based on mutual recognition of suffering and grief that rejects nationalist ideologies?

*** Bitte dringend anmelden! *** Das VDE-Netzwerk Medizintechnik & LifeSciene Electronik (ehem. AKML) lädt ein zu einem lauen Sommernachmittag/-abend im Biergarten, bei dem wir gemeinsam über die aktuellen Trends in der Medizinelektronik und die Digitalisierung in unserem Gesundheitswesen diskutieren.

„The state protects […] the natural foundation of life […].” (German Constitution Article 20 a). The presentation outlines the challenges and procedures to ensure legally compliant military use of German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) training areas. The Bundeswehr manages approximately 150.000 hectares of training areas (large troop training grounds). About two-thirds of this area is designated as NATURA 2000 sites (Fauna-Flora-Habitat and bird protection areas). The aim is to integrate military training with environmental and nature conservation. This includes managing environmental requirements and safety regulations. Based on practical examples, it will be proved that, with sufficient effort environmental protection and military practise can coexist in Germany and are, in fact, not a contradiction. Thomas Backes is a geologist based in Munich with over 30 years of professional experience in environmental and military geology. He earned his M.Sc. in Geology from the universities of Bonn and Aachen and began his career in an engineering office for environmental issues in Cologne. From 1993 to 2013, he held several positions as a Military Geologist in Potsdam, Munich, and Euskirchen, including international missions abroad. Since 2013, he has been working at the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Infrastructure, Environmental Protection and Services in Munich. Thomas Backes is married and has two boys.

As a Member of the European Parliament Jutta Paulus offers a personal perspective on the current developments at European level, with a focus on the impacts on environmental policy. Global wars and conflicts are shifting attention of policy makers towards short term challenges, achievements in EU environmental protection are now considered detrimental for competitiveness and the ability to deal with global crisis.  Jutta Paulus (born 1967 in Gießen, Hessen) is a German pharmacist and politician. After studying in Marburg (1986–1990), she moved to the Palatinate, where she has lived ever since. In 1991, she co-founded a laboratory specializing in indoor pollutants and ecotoxicology, later focusing on chemical testing and EU regulatory compliance. Following two decades in management, she sold her shares in 2012 and shifted her focus to politics, while continuing to work in quality management in laboratories and hospitals. As a long-standing member of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Paulus has held numerous roles at local, state, and federal levels, particularly in energy, ecology, and environmental policy. She served as chair of the Green Party in Rhineland-Palatinate (2017–2019) and has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2019 as part of the Greens/EFA group.

Much of the research into the relationship between war and natural resources in eastern DRC focuses on conflict financing, or how armed groups and forces profit from extracting and trading natural resources. Additionally, it highlights the environmentally destructive effects of such extraction. However, these dynamics offer only a partial view of how war, the environment and natural resources interrelate. This talk adopts a broader perspective by examining the political, social, and symbolic dimensions of these interrelations through a microdynamics approach. For example, by taxing and governing natural resources, armed groups attempt to establish themselves as political authorities. They also exploit grievances relating to environmentallydestructive and unfair resource extraction to legitimise their power. Furthermore, conflicts over natural resources often have profound identity-related and spiritual dimensions. Initiatives to protect nature and combat illegal resource extraction must consider these broader dimensions. Judith Verweijen is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University. Her research lies at the intersection of conflict studies, political ecology, and political geography. She focuses her research on militarisation, the dynamics of violence and the interaction between armed and social mobilisation in conflicts over natural resources in areas of protracted violence. She has been conducting intermittent fieldwork in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2010.

One aspect of the Israel-Gaza war, and indeed of any war, is the less discussed direct and indirect climate impacts of armed conflicts. Militaries are not very transparent, and it is difficult to access the data needed to run greenhouse gas emissions calculations. If it is up to researchers to hold militaries to account for their own emissions, it is therefore incumbent for us to have the theoretical and empirical tools necessary to do so. Using a geopolitical ecology approach, I will present two different examples of how alongside a network of scholars, activists and civil society groups, we are trying to fill the military emission gap. The first is a study of the greenhouse gas emissions of the Israel-Gaza conflict and a more recent analysis of the Iran war. The second project includes an analysis of military critical mineral supply chains using a case study of the MQ-9 Reaper Drone. The talk will include the theoretical and empirical approaches taken in our studies and discuss pathways for future research questions around the topic of toxic and climate legacies of war. Benjamin Neimark is a Reader in geopolitical ecology at the School of Business and Management at Queen Mary University of London. Benjamin is a human geographer and political ecologist whose current research looks at the US military as a global climate actor and, more broadly, the environment footprints of the world’s militaries. He leads a new UKRI grant on military critical mineral supply chains and decarbonisation – which uses a geopolitical ecology lens to examine the critical geopolitical and political economy of large institutions, such as militaries, and their role in multi-scalar environment and climate breakdown. Two recent publications of interest: Hottest of the Hotspots: The Rise of Eco-precarious Conservation Labor in Madagascar and Concrete Impacts: Blast Walls, Wartime Emissions, and the US Occupation of Iraq.

TUM Entrepreneurship Day Der letzte Donnerstag im Juni steht an der TU München jedes Jahr im Zeichen des Gründertums. An diesem Tag kommt das gesamte Ökosystem von TUM, UnternehmerTUM und den TUM Venture Labs zusammen, um sich über Start-up Themen und Innovationstrends auszutauschen.