Climate Change, Forced Migration, and International Law

✍ Scribed by Jane McAdam

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Year: 2012
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 408
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Displacement caused by climate change is an area of growing concern. With current rises in sea levels and changes to the global climate, it is an issue of fundamental importance to the future of many parts of the world. This book critically examines whether States have obligations to protect people displaced by climate change under international refugee law, international human rights law, and the international law on statelessness. Drawing on field work undertaken in Bangladesh, India, and the Pacific island States of Kiribati and Tuvalu, it evaluates whether the phenomenon of 'climate change-induced displacement' is an empirically sound category for academic inquiry. It does so by examining the reasons why people move (or choose not to move); the extent to which climate change, as opposed to underlying socio-economic factors, provides a trigger for such movement; and whether traditional international responses, such as the conclusion of new treaties and the creation of new institutions, are appropriate solutions in this context. In this way, the book queries whether flight from habitat destruction should be viewed as another facet of traditional international protection or as a new challenge requiring more creative legal and policy responses. law, and the international law on statelessness. Drawing on

✦ Table of Contents

Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Table of Treaties, Other International Instruments, and Legislation
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
I. The Book’s Structure
1. Conceptualizing Climate Change-Related Movement
I. Introduction
II. The Nature of Displacement
III. The Importance of Context
IV. The ‘Invisibility’ of Climate Change-Related Movement
V. Conclusion: A Human Rights Approach
2. The Relevance of International Refugee Law
I. Introduction
II. The Relevance of the 1951 Refugee Convention
III. The Relevance of Regional Refugee Instruments: OAU Convention and Cartagena Declaration
IV. The Relevance of Refugee Law Concepts
V. Conclusion
3. Climate Change-Related Movement and International Human Rights Law: The Role of Complementary Protection
I. Introduction
II. Right to Life
III. Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
IV. Other Rights that May Give Rise to Complementary Protection
V. The Role of the ICESCR
VI. Analytical Assessment
VII. Do States Have Obligations Towards the Displaced under International Environmental Law?
VIII. Conclusion
4. State Practice on Protection from Disasters and Related Harms
I. Introduction
II. Legislative Protection Responses
III. Ad Hoc Humanitarian Schemes
IV. Migration Responses 115
V. Conclusion 117
5. ‘Disappearing States’, Statelessness, and Relocation
I. Introduction
II. Conceptual Problems: Macro versus Micro
III. The Nature of ‘Disappearance’
IV. What is a ‘State’?
V. Governments in Exile
VI. Statelessness?
VII. En Masse
VIII. Self-Governing Alternative
IX. Conclusion
6. Moving with Dignity: Responding to Climate Change-Related Mobility in Bangladesh
I. Introduction
II. The Impacts of Climate Change on Movement in Bangladesh
III. The Likely Nature of Movement
IV. Options for Law and Policy Reform
V. Conclusion
7. ‘Protection’ or ‘Migration’? The ‘Climate Refugee’ Treaty Debate
I. Introduction
II. A ‘Climate Refugee’ Treaty
III. Empirical Evidence on Movement
IV. Multicausality
V. Political Obstacles to a New Treaty
VI. Government Advocacy for International Responses
VII. Migration Options
VIII. Conclusion
8. Institutional Governance
I. Introduction
II. Spheres of Governance
III. Institutional Responses
IV. Regional Responses
V. Conclusion
9. Overarching Normative Principles
I. Introduction
II. Protection from Natural Disasters
III. Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
IV. Suggested Elements of a Guiding Framework
V. Overarching Normative Principles
VI. Conclusion
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
Footnotes
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9