The politics of refugee crisis in the context of globalization and environmental changes

Christopher Lerner International Centre for Human Rights, Democracy and Stability

Environmental Changes and Forced Migration Paper Presented at the INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM ON SOCIAL SCIENCES, Paris May 18th, 2016.

JEL Classification: K33, K00

Summary: The main purpose of this paper is to present the current state of research concerning protection on environmental migrants. The legal context of forced environmental migrations becomes and issue researched for more than thirty years. According to the most common understanding, the term „forced environmental migrant” reffering to people are forced to leave their homelands due to sudden or/and long-term changes to their local environment (habitat) which compromise their well being or secure livelihood, such changes are held to include increased drought, desertification, sea level rise, seasonal weather patterns and industrial accidents. The vast majority of such categories of mobility is in fact internal phenomenon observed in developing countries. The issue of forced environmental migration caught attention scholars dealing wih international law and international human rights law for more than twenty years. Environmental migrations constitute important issue for scholars dealing with international law and development studies. I will draw attention to the evolution of approach to environmental migrations on the basis of international human rights law. I will also present the most recognized definitons of his issue from 1985 to this date. In concluding remarks I will drew atttention to the current and future challenges associated with this issue.

Resume: Le but principal de cet article est de présenter l'état actuel de la recherche en matière de protection des migrants environnementaux. Le contexte juridique des migrations environnementales forcées devient et l'émission de recherches depuis plus de trente ans. «Migrant environnemental forcé» Selon la compréhension la plus courante, le terme reffering aux gens sont forcés de quitter leur pays d'origine en raison de la soudaine et / ou des changements à long terme à leur environnement local (habitat) qui compromettent leur bien-être ou de moyens de subsistance sûrs, tels les changements sont tenus d'inclure l'augmentation des sécheresses, la désertification, l'élévation du niveau de la mer, les conditions météorologiques saisonnières et des accidents industriels. La grande majorité de ces catégories de la mobilité est en effet phénomène interne observée dans les pays en développement. La question de la migration forcée de l'environnement a attiré l'attention des chercheurs traitant wih le droit international et le droit international des droits de l'homme depuis plus de vingt ans. migrations environnementales constituent enjeu important pour les chercheurs traitant des études de droit et de développement international. Je vais attirer l'attention sur l'évolution de l'approche des migrations environnementales sur la base du droit international des droits humains. Je vais aussi présenter les DEFINITIONS les plus reconnus de son émission de 1985 à cette date. Dans ses remarques finales, j'attiré atttention aux défis actuels et futurs liés à cette question.

Introduction - A global image of forced environmental migration - The most common definitions on - International law aspects of forced environmental migration - Concluding remarks:

Human mobility associated with environmental transformations constitutes an important area of reaserch of scholars dealing with international law, international environmental law, and social problems. There have been a number of attempts over the decades to enumerate environmental migrants and refugees. Jodi Jacobson (1988) is cited as the first researcher to enumerate the issue, stating that there were already up to 10 million ‘Environmental Refugees’. Drawing on ‘worst-case scenarios’ about sea-level rise, she argued that all forms of ‘Environmental Refugees’ would be six times as numerous as political refugees. (1988: 38). By 1989, Mustafa Tolba, Executive Director of UNEP, was claiming that 'as many as 50 million people could become environmental refugees' if the world did not act to support sustainable development (Tolba 1989: 25). In 1990, the Interngovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 1990: 20) declared that the greatest single consequence of climate change could be migration, ‘with millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and severe drought’ (Warner & Laczko: 2008: 235). In the mid-1990s, British environmentalist, Norman Myers, became the most prominent proponent of this ‘maximalist’ school (Suhrke 1993). Noting, that "environmental refugees will soon become the largest group of involuntary refugees".[2] Additionally, he stated that there were 25 million environmental refugees in the mid-1990s, further claiming that this figure could double by 2010, with an upper limit of 200 million by 2050 (Myers 1997).[13] Myers argued that the causes of environmental displacement would include desertification, lack of water, salination of irrigated lands and the depletion of bio-diversity. He also hypothesised that displacement would amount to 30m in China, 30m in India, 15m in Bangladesh, 14m in Egypt, 10m in other delta areas and coastal zones, 1m in island states, and with otherwise agriculturally displaced people totalling 50m (Myers & Kent 1995) by 2050.[14] More recently, Myers has suggested that the figure by 2050 might be as high as 250 million (Christian Aid 2007: 6).[15]

A map showing where natural disasters caused/aggravated by global warming may occur, and thus where environmental refugees would be created[citation needed] These claims have gained significant currency, with the most common claims being that 150-200 million people will be climate change refugees by 2050. Variations of this claim have been made in influential reports on climate change by the IPCC (Brown 2008: 11) and the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (Stern et al. 2006: 3), as well as by NGOs such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace Germany (Jakobeit and Methmann 2007) and Christian Aid; and intergovernmental organisations such as the Council of Europe, UNESCO, IOM (Brown 2008) and UNHCR. Norman Myers is perhaps the most widely cited, and the authority of his claims is often attributed to the fact that his chief contribution to the field (Myers & Kent 1995), and which came to a total of 25 million environmental migrants in 1995, used over 1000 sources

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, more than 42 million people were displaced in Asia and the Pacific during 2010 and 2011, more than twice the population of Sri Lanka. This figure includes those displaced by storms, floods, and heat and cold waves. Still others were displaced by drought and sea-level rise. Most of those compelled to leave their homes eventually returned when conditions improved, but an undetermined number became migrants, usually within their country, but also across national borders.

Climate-induced migration is a highly complex issue which needs to be understood as part of global migration dynamics. Migration typically has multiple causes, and environmental factors are intertwined with other social and economic factors, which themselves can be influenced by environmental changes. Environmental migration should not be treated solely as a discrete category, set apart from other migration flows. A 2012 Asian Development Bank study argues that climateinduced migration should be addressed as part of a country's development agenda, given the major implications of migration on economic and social development. The report recommends interventions both to address the situation of those who have migrated, as well as those who remain in areas subject to environmental risk. It says: "To reduce migration compelled by worsening environmental conditions, and to strengthen resilience of at-risk communities, governments should adopt polices and commit financing to social protection, livelihoods development, basic urban infrastructure development, and disaster risk management."Additionally, it is maintained that the poor populate areas that are most at risk for environmental destruction and climate change, including coastlines, flood-lines and steep slopes. As a result, climate change threatens areas already suffering from extreme poverty. "The issue of equity is crucial. Climate affects us all, but does not affect us all equally," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates at a climate conference in

Indonesia. Africa is also one of the world regions where environmental displacement is critical largely due to droughts and other climate related eventualities. ] In 2013 a claim of a Kiribati man of being a "climate change refugee" under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) was determined by the New Zealand High Court to be untenable.[32][33] The Refugee Convention did not apply as there is no persecution or serious harm related to any of the five stipulated convention grounds. The Court rejected the argument that the international community itself (or countries which can be said to have been historically high emitters of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases) were the “persecutor” for the purposes of the Refugee Convention.[32] This analysis of the need for the person to identify persecution of the type descried in the Refugee Convention does not exclude the possibility that a people for countries experiencing severe impacts of climate change can come with the Refugee Convention. However it is not the climate change event itself, rather the social and political response to climate change, which is likely to create the pathway for a successful claim. The New Zealand Immigration and Protection Tribunal and the High Court, “there is a complex inter-relationship between natural disasters, environmental degradation and human vulnerability. Sometimes a tenable pathway to international protection under the Refugee Convention can result. Environmental issues sometimes lead to armed conflict. There may be ensuing violence towards or direct repression of an entire section of a population. Humanitarian relief can become politicised, particularly in situations where some group inside a disadvantaged country is the target of direct discrimination.”[34] The New Zealand Court of Appeal also rejected the claim in a 2014 decision. On further appeal the New Zealand Supreme Court confirmed the earlier adverse rulings against the application for refugee status, with the Supreme Court also rejecting the proposition “that environmental degradation resulting from climate change or other natural disasters could never create a pathway into the Refugee Convention or protected person jurisdiction.”[35] In 2014 attention was drawn to an appeal to the New Zealand Immigration and Protection Tribunal against the deportation of a Tuvaluan family on the basis that they were "climate change refugees", who would suffer hardship resulting from the environmental degradation of Tuvalu.[36] However the subsequent grant of residence permits to the family was made on grounds unrelated to the refugee claim.[37] The family was successful in their appeal because, under the relevant immigration legislation, there were "exceptional circumstances of a humanitarian nature" that justified the grant of resident permits as the family was integrated into New Zealand society with a sizeable extended family which had effectively relocated to New Zealand

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