This article outlines and evaluates the US perspective on how treaty and customary international law protect the natural environment during international armed conflict. It surveys the relevant treaties to which the United States is a party and examines US views on their pertinent provisions. It then assesses claims that the environmental obligations residing in the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions have attained customary status, outlines the United States’ rejection of those claims, and evaluates the reasonableness thereof. Finally, it highlights ambiguities in certain US environmental positions, the resolution of which would bring much-needed clarity to the law.

The Production of aluminium is one of such industrial processes that have the potential to release great quantities of dangerous toxic material into the atmosphere. To protect the environment, the Alucam Company has put in place two collection and treatment stations. The main indicator of performance of this system is the collection and treatment efficiency. All other parameters kept constant, this efficiency is proportional to the fume flow rate at the chimney. But the key parameters to control in case of variation are poorly mastered. The collection efficiency of the treatment stations can deteriorate at any moment without any successful intervention to bring back the situation to normal. This article presents the first part of a research work which intends to solve this problem of variations in the flow rate by increasing the fume flow rate and controlling the system within specified limits. We use a Continuous Improvement Methodology which involves the use of Six Sigma tools at the completion of the analysis phase of which we get the fundamental causes of the low performance.