Veronique Arnaud Paper 1

Virginie Arnaud
Université de Grenoble
Grenoble, France
Forced Environmental Migration and International Refugee Law: A Critical Review
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". 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). 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. More recently, Myers has suggested that the figure by 2050 might be as
high as 250 million (Christian Aid 2007: 6).
A map showing where natural disasters caused/aggravated by global warming may occur, and thus
where environmental refugees would be created. 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 inter-governmental 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 climate-induced 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. 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. 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.” The New Zealand Court of Appeal also rejected the claim in a 2014 decision 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”. In 2014
attention was drawn to an appeal to the Now 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. However the
subsequent grant of residence permits to the family was made on grounds unrelated to the refugee
claim. 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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