Environmental Migration

The ill-effects of climate change caused by the emission of greenhouse gases are droughts; storm surges which destroy infrastructure, housing and crops; and rise in sea levels which adversely affect small island states which could eventually be submerged and force citizens who flee because of the ill-effects of climate change to be described as ‘climate change refugees’. Refugees under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol are persons who cross international borders and have a well-founded fear of persecution. Climate change refugees are persons who flee for reasons other than persecution and who do not have legal status. And yet, preventive responses of international law to climate change refugees raise the issues of global justice. The objects of this paper are: i) to evaluate the proffered extension of International Refugee Law to climates change refugees; ii) to discuss the role of international human rights law as a complementary protection for climate change refugees; iii) to evaluate the protection under international environmental law; iv) to discuss the migration options; v) to discuss disappearing states, statelessness and relocation; and vi) to assess critically the feasibility and desirability of a Climate Change Treaty based on a monist-naturalist conception of global justice privileging human dignity as one of its guiding principles.

Welcoming climate refugees to the United States: Do attitudes depend on refugee origins, numbers, or permanence?

The article is an attempt to respond to the need to find international legal solutions, extremely important for people living in the countries threatened by the consequences of climate change, among others, the effects of rising sea levels in the seas and oceans. I try to direct attention to the still underestimated in the international law problem of the so-called "climate refugees". Behind the concept that defies the classic definitions of "refugees", there are hundreds of thousands today, and soon perhaps millions of people whose lives, health and property will be threatened by the forces of nature. The originality of the approach presented in the article is an attempt to consider whether appropriate legal solutions that protect vulnerable populations can be sought on the basis of international humanitarian law, since so far no other branch of international law seemed adequate to take up this challenge. The urgent and important dimension of the problems discussed in the article completes the necessity of searching for and finding answers to questions about the relationship between climate change and public international law. These are the legal consequences of climate deterritorialisation of sovereign states, such as the status of the population of the state without land territory, the loss of territories by archipelago states, the change of the sea borders, territorial waters, exclusive economic zones, and finally the responsibility of states for climate change. In the context of 'climate refugees', there is still no binding legal act that would meet the needs of thousands of people affected by climate change. This causes dissonance because, beyond any doubt, the situation in which these people find themselves raises a lot of fears - for their own lives, safety, health, etc. Today, entire communities and even countries face the problem of progressing deterritorialisation in face of climate threats. climate change, they face the risk of a non-culpable threat to their sovereignty.

The study's goal is to look at the implications of climate change on the African continent, which has seen the consequences of environmental and climate change, including "environmental displacement" or "climate refugees." The findings show that, despite the fact that the phenomenon of "climate refugees" has become visible in Africa, and despite Africa's concrete efforts, the lack of international recognition of the term "climate refugee," as well as a lack of environmental justice in distributing the burdens of global warming, remains an impediment to Africa's for solving this issue.  As a result, international collaboration is essential to find common ground. The study's significance lies in demonstrating the inadequacy of African efforts to eliminate the phenomenon of environmental refugees, as well as the lack of international efforts to build a legal framework to address the issue.  The main objective of this paper is to Clarify the problematic concept of “Climate Refugee”; Determining the negative effects on the African continent that are resulting from environmental degradation; which had been a result of climate change; and  Evaluating the African efforts to combat the phenomenon.

This chapter sets out and critiques the main competitor to my own account of justice in climate displacement: the idea of a treaty for ‘climate refugees’. The first section of the chapter draws together a number of proposals for a climate refugee treaty that have been set out in the literature. The second section of the chapter explores the concept of the ‘climate refugee’ and argues that it obscures the heterogeneity and complexity of climate displacement. This means that a climate refugee treaty would exhibit two morally troubling forms of arbitrariness: it would fail to treat like cases alike and fail to treat relevantly different cases differently. The third section of the chapter introduces my alternative: the pluralist approach. I argue that the pluralist approach escapes the problems of the climate refugee treaty by disaggregating climate displacement and integrating it with non-climatic displacement.

Social work evaluates an individual within her/his environment. As the individual is affected by the social environment she/he is also affected by the physical environment. Thus, social work also deals with physical problems caused by the physical environment of an individual. Climate and ecological factors are important determinants on human behavior and adaptation, for human and climate affect each other. In order to express the social work that treats the effects of the various environmental factors on human behavior with a holistic approach, the term “environmentalist/green social work” is used. Among these environmental factors; climate change due to global warming, increasing sea levels, floods, drought, desertification and deforestation can be seen. People are deprived from viable secure environment due to environmental degradation and climate change, and as a consequence are forced to displace towards viable countries. Those who migrate by necessary towards other countries are named as environmental refugees or climate refugees. According to the 1951 Geneva Convention, where those people who are outside their home-state due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership of a particular social group are named as refugee; environmental refugees are outside the scope of this definition. The social work with a preventative and holistic approach to the environment and environmental refugee problem, has to act in local, national and international levels to decrease the negative effects of environmental factors on people, consciousness-raising, mobilizing people and advocating at macro level towards protecting the rights of environmental refugees. Meantime it has to conduct psycho-social support services at micro-mezzo scale to those people who are affected by environmental factors and to environmental refugees.

The authors examine the negative social phenomenon of environmental migration from the criminological viewpoint and describe its causes, character and specific features. They present their own classification of the types of environmental migration and offer examples of each type. It is stressed that environmental migration will be growing in the nearest future due to the worsening environmental problems, mainly connected with the violations of the right of citizens to a favorable environment, including the consequences of environmental crimes. There is a link between illegal and environmental migration, which could be disorganized, forced and often uncontrollable, thus posing a threat to national security and leading to a general destabilization of the situation in the country and the world. As a result of their research, the authors conclude that it is required to develop the instruments of international and state policy of regulating environmental migration as a necessary condition for the prevention of the development of illegal migration and forced uncontrolled movement of people and the minimization of the negative consequences of these phenomena. They argue for widening the concept of «refugee» and «displaced person» by including the category «persons who left their place of residence as a result of natural disasters or irreversible natural phenomena caused by climate change». The authors conclude that environmental migration, having a high criminogenic potential, needs further criminogenic research, which will determine its causes, development trends and potential threats. The creation of the mechanism of its regulation and control requires a thoughtful and balanced approach due to the excessive politicizing of environmental problems.

One of the most important global policy and environmental institution issues in recent days is the climate refugee phenomenon. The climate refugees confronting unsecured legal status and, appalling, human rights violations as well as dangerous access to basic services. The scale of this crisis grows ever more pronounced from day to day, and given its highly endemic character it is doubtful that existing international instruments, particularly the 1951 Refugee Convention, are in a position to offer effectively to the distinct dangers and vulnerabilities of climate-displaced people. As a special emphasis, the article focuses on case studies in the Pacific Islands, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, where climate displacement is severely afflicting, disproportionate to the rest of the world. Moreover, the article discusses the boundaries between migration of climate refugees across international borders under the Constraint of strained resources, national security access and social integration. To avoid this coming crisis the article advocates for global policies that are inclusive that would include environmental sustainability, human rights protection and equitable resource allocation. For instance, there is a need for cooperative international action which revises existing legal instruments and institutes some new paradigms for climate migration to relative justice and security for climate refugees.Keywords:Climate Refugees, Environmental Displacement, Global Borders, Political Policies, Human Rights, Climate Change, Migration, Legal Frameworks, Global Security, Sustainability.

This study aims to suggest another view of the so-called “climate refugee”, especially those from the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific Ocean. Although many studies have been conducted on the legal aspects of the climate refugees’ situations, little has been studied about how they succeed in re-establishing their livelihoods after relocation. Unlike migrations forced by other causes, the future migrations induced by sea level rise have a long lead time which gives the people involved the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to adjust to their new lives. This paper examines whether “pre-training” opportunities are sufficient in those countries from which climate refugees are most likely to come. The author focuses on the Republic of the Marshall Islands, one of the small island countries in the Pacific being threatened by environmental changes such as rising sea level, high tides, and drought. Due to a unique situation allowing the Marshallese people to move to the United States without a visa, many people do so each year under the free association partnership. However, some of these migrants fail to adjust to the United States and come back to their home islands, possibly due to a lack of skills. Given that more climate refugees are likely in the future, pre-training that provides essential skills to benefit future climate refugees is necessary. Through key informant interviews in the Marshall Islands, it seems that such training opportunities are currently limited, but have great potential to flourish.

Introduction 1. Conceptualizing Climate Change-Related Movement 2. The Relevance of International Refugee Law 3. Climate Change-Related Movement and International Human Rights Law: The Role of Complementary Protection 4. State Practice on Protection from Disasters and Related Harms 5. 'Disappearing States', Statelessness, and Relocation 6. Moving with Dignity: Responding to Climate Change-Related Mobility in Bangladesh 7. 'Protection' or 'Migration'? The 'Climate Refugee' Treaty Debate 8. Institutional Governance 9. Overarching Normative Principles Conclusion

This chapter responds to proposals for a new refugee-like instrument for people displaced by climate change. First, it analyses the conceptual and pragmatic challenges of constructing such an instrument, not least given the very disparate types of movement that could be encompassed within that concept. Secondly, it examines an alternative paradigm for responding to movement: migration. This builds on calls by some affected States to expand existing migration opportunities for their nationals, and their resistance to the ‘climate refugee’ concept.

Displaced by Nature: Rethinking Human Rights Protections for Climate-Displaced Populations

Since 2005, in the collections of the Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon, ex-centricity and resistance have played a central role in his depiction of contemporary world changes affecting Ireland. Dealing with globalization, the economic crisis, increased immigration and climate change, Mahon tackles the major challenges of our day while defining a framework to his own agenda as poet and inhabitant of the earth. As these concerns appear very explicitly in the poems, three main tropes shape his poetic response: resistance and flight, migration, and the constant search for alternative modes of creation and living. He achieves these through the delimitation of unmapped spaces or abandoned sites, usually on the periphery.

‘Climate Refugees’ : A legal mapping exercise

Climate change and forced migration are often thought about in terms of the sheer numbers of people who might be displaced by a transforming environment. But the potential for ‘environmental refugees’—whether from long-term degradation or short-term catastrophe—extends far beyond those directly affected. Understanding the forces that produce, respond to and amplify such forced migration patterns requires a complex and nuanced view of them. In this article, I explore the question of environmental displacement through the lens of nexus dynamics and look at how environmental refugees complicate our understandings of place, belonging, stability and resilience. I do so through a focus on the largest global refugee camps in the world and the particular environmental vulnerabilities that each faces. Using Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh (Rohingya refugees), Dadaab in Kenya (Somali refugees) and Za’atari in Jordan (Syrian refugees), I examine the ways that political, economic and ecological factors have driven the inhabitants to the camps, keep them vulnerable within them, and raise questions about both their and the camps’ respective futures. By cataloguing some of the environmental risks within the region of each camp and examining each camp’s response in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, I consider the broader logic, viability and purpose of each of these camps, as representative of parallel spaces globally. What does resilience and vulnerability mean in a refugee camp? How does a nexus dynamics approach to climate change and migration help us to understand a complex system such as this?