1st Edition
Climate Refugees Beyond the Legal Impasse?
Current estimates of the numbers of people who will be forced from their homes as a result of climate change by the middle of the century range from 50 to 200 million. Therefore, even the most optimistic projections envisage a crisis of migration that will dwarf any we have seen so far. And yet attempts to develop legal mechanisms to deal with this impending crisis have reached an impasse that shows little sign of being overcome. This is in spite of the rapidly growing academic study and policy development in the area of climate change generally.
'Climate Refugees': Beyond the Legal Impasse? addresses a fundamental gap in academic literature and policy making – namely the legal ‘no-man’s land’ in which the issue of climate refugees currently resides. Past proposals for the regulation of climate-induced migration are evaluated, inter alia by their original authors, and the volume also looks at current attempts to regulate climate-induced migration, including by officials from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Platform on Displacement Disaster (PDD).
Bringing together experts from a variety of academic fields, as well as officials from leading international organisations, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of Environmental Law, Refugee Law, Human Rights Law, Environmental Studies and International Relations.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Contributors
List of Abbreviations
PART I: FOUNDATIONS
Chapter 1: Overcoming the Legal Impasse? Setting the scene
Simon Behrman & Avidan Kent
Chapter 2: ‘Climate Refugees’ a Legal Mapping Exercise
Jolanda van der Vliet
Chapter 3: A New Category of Refugees? "Climate Refugees" and a Gaping Hole in International Law Sumudu Atapattu
Chapter 4: Norm Formalization in International Policy Cooperation - A Framework for Analysis Elin Jakobsson
PART II: DEFINING AND CATEGORISING
Chapter 5: Justice and Climate Migration: The Importance of Nomenclature in the Discourse on 21st Century Mobility
Maxine Burkett
Chapter 6: Who Are "Climate Refugees"? Academic Engagement in the Post-Truth Era
Benoit Mayer
PART III: GOVERNING CLIMATE REFUGEES: THE PERSPECTIVE OF INTER-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
Chapter 7: Advancing the Global Governance of Climate Migration through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Global Compact on Migration: Perspectives from the International Organization for Migration
Mariam Traore Chazalnoel and Dina Ionesco
Chapter 8: Enhancing Legal Protection for People Displaced in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities
Madeline Garlick, Marine Franck & Erica Bower
Chapter 9: State-Led, Regional, Consultative Processes: Opportunities to Develop Legal Frameworks on Disaster
Displacement Platform on Disaster Displacement
PART IV: REGULATING CLIMATE REFUGEES WITHIN EXISTING LEGAL REGIMES
Chapter 10: Drawing Upon International Refugee Law: The Precautionary Approach to Protecting Climate Change Displaced Persons
Jenny Poon
Chapter 11: Public International Law’s Applicability to Migration as Adaptation: Fit For Purpose? Thekli Anastasiou
Chapter 12: Climate Migrants’ Right to Enjoy their Culture
Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh
Chapter 13: Beyond the Shortcomings of International Law: a Proposal for the Legal Protection of Climate Migrants
Beatriz Felipe Pérez
PART V: ENVISIONING SUI GENERIS PATHWAYS
Chapter 14: Towards an International Legal Status of Environmentally-Displaced Persons Michel Prieur
Chapter 15: Cross-Border Displacement Due to Environmental Disaster: A Proposal for UN Guiding Principles to Fill the Legal Protection Gap
Camilla Schloss
Chapter 16: Global Governance to Protect Future Climate Refugees
Frank Biermann
Biography
Simon Behrman is a lecturer at the Law School at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
Avidan Kent is a lecturer at the University of East Anglia, UK, and a Fellow of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (McGill/Cambridge University).
