Water 2020, 12, 340 19 of 28 by its merciless tactics ranging from beheadings to international calls for terrorism and its genocidal campaigns throughout Iraq and Syria. (At the time of writing, the only major legal development involving IS has been a case discussed involving Yazidi torture victims, which would be the first case against IS in international courts. The development has received mixed reactions because of the blatant impracticality of legally pursuing IS via an institution such as the ICC to halt atrocities, and may be an awareness-raising tactic rather than legal strategy leading to an implementable resolution [87,88].) The fact that IS is bound to international law as a “non-state armed group” does not have any impact on IS’s activities. However, this does not exonerate the international legal system from addressing deficiencies in international law to cope with atrocities committed by this type of actor impacting civilian water access. No international framework exists that outlines the responsibilities of states or international bodies such as the UN in addressing abuses of civilian water rights when these abuses are committed by non-state actors whose actions are unlikely to be halted by pursuit in international courts. Some have argued that in such situations, military engagement [15] becomes a necessary response to curtail weaponisation of water. However, this approach still does not address that there are open questions about state responsibility for aiding civilians who are impacted by water weaponisation committed by non-state actors. The issues of assistance and justice for civilians are unlikely to be helped, and far more likely to be further jeopardised, by western military engagement. The nature of warfare has been dramatically altered by IS’s weaponisation of water, a reality that makes questions about state responsibility to protect civilians of increasing urgency. The ICRC claims that the Geneva Conventions are living documents, which require reinterpretation over time to ensure that international justice norms remain relevant to warfare’s ever-evolving nature. Lossow notes the following: With 174 state parties now signatories to [Additional Protocol I] . . . states, with some exceptions of course, have increasingly been hesitating—at least officially— . . . from weaponising water. The increasing use of water as a weapon by IS and other military factions in Syria and Iraq breaks with this development. [83] Given the unprecedented degree to which the weaponisation of water has evolved in recent years, is it not necessary that international law ‘catch up’ and evolve as well? Water manipulation is not a new phenomenon in the MENA region. For example, Saddam Hussein “used water as a strategic weapon against a Shia population known as the Marsh Arabs” [15]. The Marsh Arabs rebelled against the regime following the 1991 US invasion of Iraq and faced a full-scale diversion of water resources as Saddam’s retaliation, leaving 100,000 people displaced. The catastrophic impacts of water, air, and soil pollution from the use of depleted uranium weaponry have become all too familiar to civilians in Iraq in the years since the Gulf War and 2003 invasion of Iraq. Increases in diseases such as childhood leukaemia have been linked to low-level radiation contamination [89]. As established by Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, F. Basher Ahamadani, and A. Mahdavi Damghani, children living in close proximity to a US military base in Iraq were found to have an increased risk of congenital abnormalities, which is linked to thorium and uranium exposure [90]. Going farther back in history, there is evidence that water was weaponised in ancient Mesopotamia, when King Urlama of the city-state Lagash cut off water to the neighbouring city-state Umma [84]. (Mesopotamia was where present-day Iraq is located. The name translates from ancient Greek to “the land between the rivers”, i.e., the Tigris and Euphrates.) As demonstrated in Section 1, however, the nature of water manipulation has changed. In the Syrian case, drought was a key factor leading to the civil war. Climate change is believed to have contributed to the drought’s unprecedented intensity, leading to massive displacements as farmers and herders fled their barren land for cities, only to end up destitute and living on urban peripheries. Climate change is leading to greater incidences and intensity of water scarcity and flooding, making manipulation of water resources as a tool of warfare more potent than ever before.