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In cooperation with
Funded by
ClimMig
Conference on Human Rights, Environmental Change,
Migration and Displacement
Vienna, 20/21 September 2012
Venue (except for Cinema and Human Rights):
Austrian Research Foundation for International Development (ÖFSE)
Sensengasse 3, 1090 Vienna
Conference Venue
ÖFSE, Sensengasse 3, 1090 Vienna
= Conference Venue
20 September 2012
14:00
Registration & Coffee/Tea
14:30
Opening of the Conference
This session will briefly introduce the ClimMig project, the
conference and the key themes that will be addressed.
Manfred Nowak – Welcome address
Margit Ammer, François Gemenne – Opening remarks
15:00 –
17:30
Keynote speeches – followed by discussions
Three keynote speeches by leading experts in international law and
refugee law will set the framework for a rights-based approach of
environmental migration and displacement.
Walter Kälin “The Nansen Principles: The way ahead”
Coffee/Tea Break
Jane McAdam “Legal Solutions: If a treaty is not the answer, then
what is it?”
Roger Zetter “The local dimension of international legal and
normative frameworks: how it works on the ground”
Moderation: Michael Frahm
19:00 –
21:30
Cinema and Human Rights
Screening of the movie “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Ford
(1940) – introduced by François Gemenne
In cooperation with
Venue: Top Kino, Rahlgasse 1, 1060 Vienna
21 September 2012
9:30
ClimMig - Presentation of the Project
Margit Ammer – The role of human rights in the project
Pauline Brücker – How international organisations deal with human
rights in the context of environmental migration: a mapping
exercise
”Key Human Rights Challenges”
10:15 –
12:00
12:00
Parallel sessions
Panel I:
Right to Food
(Security), Water,
Health, and Land
Lunch Break
Panel II:
Civil and
Political Rights
Panel III:
Resettlement Schemes
and Right to Return
“Addressing Human Rights”
13:45 –
15:30
15:30
Parallel sessions
Panel IV:
Legal Protection
Panel V:
Legal Protection
(Case Studies)
Posters & Coffee/Tea
Panel VI:
Climate Justice
16:00 –
17:30
Policy Roundtable: What can the EU do?
Agata Sobiech, International Relations Officer, Commission (DG
Home Affairs)
Justin Ginnetti, Advisor, Natural Disasters, Internal Displacement
Monitoring Centre (IDMC), Norwegian Refugee Council
Alina Narusova-Schmitz, Regional Policy and Liaison Officer, IOM
Christian Fellner, Federal Ministry for European and International
Affairs
Moderation: François Gemenne
17:30 –
17:45
Concluding Remarks
Project team
Details Panels / Morning Session “Key Human Rights Challenges”
Panel I: Right to Food (Security), Water, Health, and Land
Chair: Michael Frahm
Tori Timms (Environmental Justice Foundation): The human cost of
adaptation and mitigation failures
Jeanette Schade (University of Bielefeld, COMCAD): Human rights, climate
change and climate policies in Kenya: The case of Tana Delta
Claire Debucquois (University of Louvain): Land investment in the South: a
rights-based approach
Tania Berger (Danube University Krems): Urban growth, climate change and
vulnerability
Panel II: Civil and Political Rights
Chair: Roger Zetter
Maja Bahor, Andrej A. Lukšič (University of Ljubljana): Green citizenship in
the light of environmental migrations
Fabian Schuppert (University of Zürich, ETH): Governing climate refugees:
Self-determination and finding new territory
Panel III: Resettlement Schemes and Right to Return
Chair: François Gemenne
Michelle Leighton (American University of Central Asia): Population
Displacement, Relocation, and Migration: The Law of Adaptation to Climate
Change
Nicole de Moor (University of Ghent): Returning to a destructed environment:
on the right and duty to return
Mariya Gromilova (Tilburg University): Right to development of people: is
migration a fair adaptation strategy from a human rights perspective?
Details Panels / Afternoon Session “Addressing Human Rights”
Panel IV: Legal Protection, Chair: Walter Kälin
Marion Noack (ICMPD): “Climate Refugees” Legal and policy responses to
environmentally induced migration
Emilie Kuijt (University of Leiden): Protecting Environmentally Displaced
Persons: A Human Right to Humanitarian Assistance in the Aftermath of
Natural Disasters?
Calum TM Nicholson (University of Swansea): The environmental change,
migration and displacement debate: distinguishing analytic and normative
frameworks and gaining critical distance
Panel V: Legal Protection – Case Studies, Chair: Jane McAdam
Sarah Nash (University of Glasgow): Forced migration norms in the context
of climate change: a case study of Somalia
Alice Baillat (Sciences Po, CERI): A Critical Analysis of Security-Based
Discourses on Climate-Induced Migration in Bangladesh: The Silent on
Human Rights
Johannes Herbeck/Silja Klepp (University of Bremen): Negotiating Climate
Change and Migration in the European Union and the Pacific
Michele Manocchi (University of Turin): From “real story” to “right story”:
when one's own story must be silenced
Panel VI: Climate Justice, Chair: Monika Mayrhofer
Teresa Thorp (Utrecht University): Constitutionalism of Climate Justice:
Towards An International Legal Framework for Responding to Climate
Induced Migration and Displacement
Ritumbra Manuvie (University of Edinburgh): Climate Change and Human
Rights: Role of Courts in the event of climate change
Rosa Enn (University of Vienna): The chance for Environmental Justice for
the Indigenous Dao?
Posters
Benoît Mayer (National University of Singapore): Whose protection? –
Questioning the need for a specific human rights regime for environmental
migrants
Tufail Jarul (Jawaharlal Nehru University): Climatic change and its impact on
the seasonal movement of the Bakarwal tribe and its future in the Valley of
Kashmir
Charlotte Huteau (Université de La Rochelle): Disappearing states: How to
preserve the identity of the displaced population
Patrick Toussaint (Diplomatic Academy of Vienna): Migration and Human
Mobility in the Context of Environmental Displacement
Programme may be subject to amendment
Key experts
Walter Kälin is professor for Constitutional and International Law at the University
of Bern. He earned his Doctor of Law from the University of Bern and his LL.M.
from Harvard Law School. He has acted as a consultant for numerous agencies and
organizations – including the Swiss development agency, UNHCR, UNHCHR,
UNDP, and others – on matters of decentralization, human rights, and refugee law.
In 1991-1992, Kälin served as the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human
Rights on the situation of human rights in Kuwait under Iraqi occupation. He was
also a member of the Swiss government's Steering Committee for "the preparation of
constitutional reform" and he was Chairman for the preparation of the reform of the
judiciary (1995–1996). From 2003 to 2008, Kälin was a member of the Human Rights
Committee of the United Nations. Since 2004, Kälin has served as the Representative
of the United Nations' Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally
Displaced Persons.
Jane McAdam, BA (Hons), LLB (Hons) (Sydney), DPhil (Oxford)) is a professor at
the University of New South Wales and an Australian Research Council Future
Fellow in the Faculty of Law. She is also the Director of the International Refugee
and Migration Law project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law and the
convenor of the Faculty's Refugee Law and Policy Group. She is a Non-Resident
Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., and a Research
Associate at the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre. Jane publishes widely
in the area of international refugee law, in particular on complementary protection
and climate change-related displacement.
Roger Zetter is Emeritus Professor of Refugee Studies, University of Oxford,
retiring as the fourth Director of the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) in September
2011. He was founding editor of the Journal of Refugee Studies from 1988 till 2001.
Following degrees from Cambridge and Nottingham Universities he completed his
DPhil at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. With research
interests in sub-Saharan Africa, the EU and Middle East, his work has covered many
aspects of forced displacement. Recent research on environmental displacement and
rights has been funded by UNHCR, Governments of Norway and Switzerland. He
currently directs a project on Environmentally displaced people: rights, policies and labels
(funded by the MacArthur Foundation). He was lead consultant for the IASC 2011
Strategy for Managing Humanitarian Challenges in Urban Areas. Currently he is directing
large-scale projects on the Impacts and Costs of Forced Displacement (World Bank, Danish
and Norwegian MFAs), Unlocking the Crisis of Protracted Displacement (Norwegian MFA),
and is editor of the forthcoming IFRC World Disasters Report 2012 focused on forced
migration.
Panel I
Tori Timms
The human cost of adaptation and mitigation failures
There is a profound human cost associated with climate change mitigation and
adaptation failures. Declining access to adequate food and water, the collapse of rural
livelihoods and forced migration are some of the core humanitarian challenges
created by the negative and complex impacts of climate change. The worst affected
countries and populations are those where exposure to impacts is most pronounced,
sensitivity is high and there is limited capacity to adapt – largely speaking, low-lying,
coastal, small island, arid and mountainous developing countries. Rather than being
an issue for the future, these impacts are being felt today and this paper outlines some
of the experiences felt by individuals in ‘frontline’ countries. They demonstrate the
urgency of which action on climate change is needed. The most effective responses to
the impacts of climate change will involve planning and preparedness and
participation from affected communities and populations. There need to be greater
synergies between economic, environmental, social and human rights frameworks,
goals and strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. Civil society
organizations (CSOs) can play an important role in information sharing and
facilitating effective dialogues between communities, researchers and policy-makers.
Tori Timms is a Campaigner at the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). She
joined EJF in 2009, where she has worked as a researcher and campaigner on issues
including environmental and social abuses in cotton production, persistent organic pollutants
(POPs) and climate change. She has contributed to publications such as ‘No Place Like
Home: where next for climate refugees?’ and ‘A Nation under Threat: The impacts of
climate change on human rights and forced migration in Bangladesh’. She was part of the
EJF team investigating the human rights threats posed by climate change in Bangladesh, and
works with EJF’s partners as part of the Home Truths – Climate Witness Network. She
has also worked as a researcher on the international trade of endangered species and shark
fisheries for the international NGO WildAid.
Jeanette Schade
Human rights, climate change and climate policies in Kenya: The case of
Tana Delta
Coming from the arid and drought hidden North of Kenya Tana River is the only
adjacent watercourse which carries water the whole year through. Thus its delta serves
as an important fallback zone for nomadic pastoralists form those provinces and is
moreover home to small-scale farmers, local semi-nomadic pastoralists, hunters and
gatherers and to a rich biodiversity. The environmental conditions and hydrological
system of the Tana Delta are, however, strongly impaired by three developments: Upstream economic activities impact upon the delta’s flooding scheme and thus upon
local agriculture; climate change increases rainfall variability; and the Kenyan
government plans to boost agrofuel production in the delta region as a part of its
climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. All three factors jeopardise the
right to water and to food of the delta’s inhabitants as well as of the seasonally inmigrating pastoralists. Expanding agrofuel cultivation, moreover, implies that people
get evicted from their lands, displaced, and deprived of commonly used natural
resources. This happens despite the new constitution of August 2010 because
Kenya’s land tenure system is currently still shaped by the legacy of the post-colonial
land management system, which made Kenyans highly land insecure. The field study,
carried out in summer 2011, shows how environmental change, climate policies, and
land regulations interact with each other to the disadvantage of already vulnerable
groups and the fulfilment of their human rights to water, food, and housing, which
are anchored in both international standards and the new Kenyan constitution.
Jeanette Schade completed her M.A. in philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy
of the Society of Jesus and holds a diploma in development studies from the University of
Bremen. She worked for the Institute for Development and Peace (INEF) of the University
of Duisburg, where she received her PhD on international relations (focus on civil society
actors). At the Center on Migration, Citizenship and Development (COMCAD) of
Bielefeld University she is now in charge of the conference series on Environmental Change,
Migration and Conflict, a collaboration between the University and the European Science
Foundation. Since 2011 she is the acting vice chair of the COST Action on Climate Change
and Migration.
Claire Debucquois
Land Appropriations in the South: a Rights-based Approach
Arable land in the South is increasingly becoming a tradable commodity, and is
changing hands on the international market. I analyse this phenomenon according to
two benchmarks, the right to food and a hypothesis of “globalizing property rights,”
paying particular attention to the bargaining and contesting tools available to rural
communities. Firstly, local communities are increasingly struggling to access and
manage the land, water and natural resources that have supported their livelihoods for
generations. These are now being converted into large-scale agro-industrial
plantations, mostly aimed at non-food production (agro-fuels). Secondly, the spread
of western-style property rights regimes as a universal institution is apparently
resulting in the disruption of pre-existing social structures, fostering land-related
conflicts as well as rural-urban migrations and reinforcing social hierarchies and
dependency patterns. While international law provides effective protection for foreign
investment, international human rights law too often remains inaccessible for people
affected at the grassroots level.
Claire Debucquois is a fellow at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research
(Aspirante auprès du F.R.S.-FNRS) and attached to the University of Louvain (UCL,
Louvain-la-Neuve) and Columbia Law School. She is member of the Research Team of
Prof. Dr. O. De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
Tania Berger
Urban growth, climate change and vulnerability - How are people in informal
urban settlements in the Global South affected by and do respond to natural
disasters?
Rural to urban migration is a dominant process in the Global South. Rural poverty
and lake of service provision figure as pushing factors while urban employment and
income generating opportunities pull people to the agglomerations. Despite appalling
living conditions in the quarters of those newly migrated to the city, these
agglomerations function as development catalysts, enabling new citizens to access
social services formally unavailable to them in remote countryside locations. Living on
limited premises excludes rural migrants from participating in the formal housing
market and forces them to informally settle in unsuitable locations and suffering from
lake of secure tenure. Due to their location in areas of hazard risk and their appliance
of cheap and inappropriate materials these marginalized settlements are extremely
vulnerable to disaster. Increased frequency of natural hazards is expected to be among
the impacts of climate change. Urban poor are therefore among those most affected.
Tania Berger is an architect by training, PhD in Natural Resources and Applied Life
Sciences. Currently she is engaged in establishing a centre for Social Housing within the
Department for Migration and Globalization at Danube University Krems, Austria. Dr.
Berger has been coordinating several research projects on national and international level
concerning energy efficiency in the built environment, including aspects such as passive house
building design, building integrated PV, impacts of climate change in the built Environment.
Panel II
Maja Bahor (co-author Andrej A. Lukšič)
Green citizenship in the light of environmental migrations
In a paper ecological migrations will be addressed from a radical political ecological
perspective that all people live within the same biosphere, therefore all people are
interconnected and mutually responsible to each other. In this light, environmental
migrations have political implications to all people in different social and geographical
positions. These implications will be highlighted from conceptual point of view
through critical revision of a citizenship. Green political theorists interrogate the
concept of citizenship through 'natural condition'. The paper presents an up to date
compilation of different views to linkage between green politics and theories of
citizenship: starting from a search to appropriate theory of citizenship in globalised
world, through ecological revision of liberal and republican notion of citizenship, to
designing of fundamentally different notion of ecological citizenship. The ecological
citizenship moves in radically new directions and it is an illustration of how the
principle can lead to actions rooted in justice.
Maja Bahor, Msc, is a doctor student candidate on Faculty of Social Sciences, University
of Ljubljana and works as a researcher and a teaching assistant at the same Faculty. Her
research work is focused on green political theory, democracy and sustainable development. In
recent years she cooperated in two projects. In the first, Professional training for professionals
in education in the field of social and civic competences, she gave lectures and performed
workshops on sustainability, ecology and democracy in numerous different groups of teachers
all around Slovenia. In the second project – Citizen(ship) in the new age: citizenship
education in multicultural and globalized world, she performed researches about topics within
citizenship education and researched new pedagogical methods and tools in topics related to
citizenship, democracy and environment.
Andrej A. Lukšic, PhD, is Associate Professor of Political Theory and a Head of the
Centre for critical approach to political science at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of
Ljubljana. At the Faculty of Social Sciences he teaches several subjects from political sciences
at the undergraduate level, at graduate level he teaches Political Ecology. Since 1993 he is a
director of The Institute of Ecology. He has experiences in editorial and project management,
research and teaching at undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate level. His research and
educational work focuses on relationships between various types of technologies, different forms
of democracy and democratization, and green political theory. As a member of the Institute of
Social Sciences he was holder and cooperating in several different projects from political science
field.
Fabian Schuppert
Governing climate refugees: Self-determination and finding new territory
Climate induced migration is one of the many key-challenges the international
community will have to deal with in the near future. If entire states disappear or
become uninhabitable, the international community will need find effective
governance structures for dealing with the displaced. This paper will inquire on which
conception of rights future climate refugee governance should be based. The paper
will analyse several candidates including claims to individual autonomy, collective selfdetermination and cultural integrity. As a result the paper suggests that protecting the
displaced group's cultural and political integrity has to take priority over individual
claims to freedom of movement or autonomy. Thus, people's individual rights to
autonomy/freedom might have to be curtailed in order to be able to implement an
effective scheme for protecting a group's/nation's collective right to selfdetermination and cultural integrity.
Fabian Schuppert is a postdoctoral fellow and research associate at the Centre for
Ethics, University of Zurich. Fabian's research focus lies on environmental ethics and
political theory. Fabian currently works on issues of resource governance and climate justice.
Panel III
Michelle Leighton
Population Displacement, Relocation, and Migration: The Law of Adaptation
to Climate Change
Immediate displacement and longer-term migration present different human rights,
legal and institutional challenges for governments and humanitarian relief
practitioners. Human mobility, particularly in large numbers from rural to urban areas,
creates governance issues. It can engender conflict and discrimination among ethnic
groups competing for jobs or other scarce resources, tax overburdened infrastructure,
and stress human welfare and social services systems. Those forced to migrate
without legal status or recognition may remain undocumented, ineligible for social
protection, and forced into the underground economy. Countries likely to be
receiving states are located in both the north North and the south South but, as yet,
few regional or international agreements exist to protect migrants and virtually none
address the impacts of climate change. This has led to a significant gap in legal
structure, practice, and financial resources for managing disaster-related migration
flows. Where countries already face humanitarian and human rights challenges, the
use of governance approaches that can more humanely and effectively address the
needs of persons displaced or who migrate due to climate impacts is particularly
critical. Climate-oriented bilateral or multilateral migration management agreements,
or recognizing a new status for migrants forced to leave uninhabitable climate
affected locations on a temporary or permanent basis, may be the most appropriate
policy tools. This presentation identifies the areas where populations are most
vulnerable to displacement, and briefly examines how governments are responding to
the issue in national adaptation planning. Next, it discusses the broader landscape of
international human rights and humanitarian standards related to displacement,
resettlement, and migration. It then considers immigration policy and practice and
legal strategies for migration management and, following this, analyses the unique
human rights issue presented by the potential for stateless persons from small island
nations. The presentation concludes by identifying reforms proposed by international
experts to help governments improve the law and practice related to climate changerelated migration and displacement.
Michelle T. Leighton, L.L.M., J.D., is Associate Professor of law at American
University of Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Deputy Director of the university’s new
Tian Shan Policy Center, and former Fulbright Scholar in Kyrgyzstan. She is Munich Re
Foundation Chair on Social Vulnerability for the UNU-Environment and Human
Security Institute, Bonn, where she has co-organized a Summer Academy on impacts of
climate disasters on human mobility for the past three years. She has advised various
international institutions, including the IOM, FAO, UNEP, UNCCD, and U.S.
Congressional Commission on Immigration Reform and served as a member of the German
Marshall Fund’s Trans-Atlantic study team on climate-related migration. Her research
interests include climate adaptation, migration, and human rights. Prior projects have
included leading a GEF project in Chile, Mexico, and Brazil on socio-economic impacts of
desertification and biodiversity loss to inform policy initiatives.
Nicole de Moor
Returning to a destructed environment: on the right and duty to return
This paper attempts to initiate the discussion on return migration in relation to
environment-induced mobility. It argues that our migration policy should not only
address the needs of those displaced persons which are not able to return to their
country of origin, but also of those willing to, or being obliged to, return to an
environment which is suffering from environmental disruptions. The right to
freedom of movement provides the starting point for this analysis, including the right
for any person to leave a country, as well as the right to return to his or her own
country. The paper explores how a sustainable and durable return to the country of
origin could be facilitated for environment-induced migrants. And for those persons
for which returning to a destructed environment becomes a duty rather than a choice,
the paper analyses States’ non-refoulement obligations in the context of deteriorating
living conditions.
Nicole de Moor obtained the degree of Master of Laws, option National and
International Public Law, at Ghent University in Belgium, and an LL.M. in International
and European Law, option Public International Law, at the University of Amsterdam.
After working as a legal advisor in immigration law at a Flemish expertise centre for
migration, she started conducting Ph.D. research at the Department of Public International
Law at Ghent University. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. An Cliquet, she conducts
research on environment-induced migration. More in particular, her research sets out to
discuss different legal frameworks that might facilitate international migration as an
adaptation strategy for communities affected by environmental degradation, focusing in
particular on international environmental law and national and regional migration law and
policy. From April to July 2010, Nicole also worked as an immigration advisor at the
Office of the Belgian State Secretary for Migration and Asylum.
Mariya Gromilova
Right to development of people induced to displacement: is migration a fair
adaptation strategy from the human rights perspective?
Continuous predictions that climate change will greatly accelerate human migration
have brought to the fore the idea of relocating certain populations as a way to adapt
to a changing environment. These discussions became so fashionable, that many
scholars and politicians consider migration to be superior to mitigation and other
adaptation strategies. At the same time, the strong emphasis on the human rightsbased approach that has been proclaimed by the international community, places an
obligation on policy-makers to consider human rights when deciding on adaptation
strategies. Yet, migration from the perspective of those who will carry the burden of
climate change may not constitute a viable and legitimate adaptation strategy, as it
implicates the human rights of threatened communities. The accent on this issue
might force politicians to consider human rights values more thoroughly, and to look
at the respective limitations and barriers before starting to promote a certain
adaptation strategy.
Mariya Gromilova is a PhD student at Tilburg University in the Department of
European and International Public Law. Under the supervision of Professor Jonathan
Verschuuren, she is currently working on the project which concerns ‘People displaced by
climate change as an emerging and distinct category: the issue of protection under international
law’. Before starting her PhD, Mariya has obtained a law degree in Tomsk State University
in Russia, and then did the Master in Human Rights Law and the Research Master at
Tilburg Law School. In February 2012 she has participated in the research project for the
IUCN Commission on Environmental Law Guidelines for Biodiversity Adaptation
Measures. Her most recent work is a chapter on ‘Climate adaptation and refugee law’ in coauthorship with Dr. Nicola Jägers, which is a contribution to the ‘Research Handbook on
Climate Adaptation Law’ by Jonathan Verschuuren that will be published later this year.
Panel IV
Marion Noack
“Climate Refugees” Legal and policy responses to environmentally induced
migration
The links between environmental factors and migration as well as possible policy
responses have received increasing attention both in academic and policy debates in
the past decade. Recent studies have shown that these links are more complex than
traditionally thought. In particular, the attention paid to mobility caused or influenced
by environmental factors needs to be complemented by attention to mobility towards
areas under environmental strain as well as to immobility in the context of
environmental degradation. The role of migration and asylum policies is essentially
limited. Nevertheless, they do have a role to play, but in particular in the context of
environmentally induced displacement. Based on a recent study for the European
Parliament, this paper focuses on the potential of the current European Union policy
framework to respond to environmentally induced displacement. To this end, the
paper develops a typology of environmentally induced migration and reviews possible
policy responses debated on the global level, identifying environmentally induced
displacement as the most relevant type of mobility in the context of environmental
risk that can be addressed by migration and asylum policies. Finally, the paper reviews
the European Union policy framework and national protection policies of EU
member states (MS). While the current policy framework already allows
accommodating environmentally induced displacement to some extent, the paper also
shows several gaps and indicates possible directions how this framework can evolve.
Marion Noack holds a university degree in International Development studies with a
focus on migration from the University of Vienna. After her studies, she worked for the
Gesellschaft für International Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and joined ICMPD in 2011 to work
on several projects in the area of migration and development, first in Brussels, then in
Vienna. She also co-authored the study “‘Climate refugees’. Legal and policy responses to
environmentally induced migration” published in 2011. Marion Noack is also experienced
in working in non-governmental environments dealing with migrants and asylum seekers.
Emilie Kuijt
Protecting Environmentally Displaced Persons: A Human Right to
Humanitarian Assistance in the Aftermath of Natural Disasters?
Climate and environmental changes may result in natural disasters with severe
consequences, like migration and displacement. In the aftermath of such
humanitarian crises it is fundamental that the human rights of affected persons be
protected. Humanitarian assistance plays a vital role in securing the fulfillment of a
persons’ right to life, food, water and health. Yet, can the receipt of humanitarian
assistance be considered a human right? Is there such a (human) ‘right to
humanitarian assistance’, derived from these existing rights? And can the existence of
a right to humanitarian assistance be claimed for persons affected by natural disasters?
This paper addresses these questions and seeks to bring clarification to the law. Such
clarification may aid in practice, and contribute to the survival of persons affected by
climate and environmental changes, as firmly embedding humanitarian assistance in
pre-existing human rights concepts will provide more protection and should enhance
its acceptance.
Emilie Kuijt is a PhD-Fellow at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of
Leiden University, under the supervision of Professor N.J. Schrijver. Her Ph.D. research
concentrates on the rights and obligations pertaining to the provision of humanitarian
assistance in international law. Her areas of expertise and interest include general public
international law, human rights law and humanitarian law. In addition to her Ph.D.
research, she lectures in and coordinates Public International Law courses at Leiden
University. She studied law at the University of Amsterdam and at the Columbia University
School of Law in New York, obtaining her LL.M in Public International Law in 2007,
and her LL.M in Information Law in 2009. Emilie has gained experience in the field of
international law during an internship with the Permanent Mission of the Netherlands to the
UN (Human Rights Council) in Geneva and after her degree during her participation with
the Defence Council of a case before the ICTY.
Calum TM Nicholson
The environmental change, migration and displacement debate:
distinguishing analytic and normative frameworks and gaining critical
distance
The debate around environmental change, migration and displacement is notoriously
chaotic. This paper will attempt to gain some much needed perspective on the issuearea. The paper will first account for the current interest in the topic by outlining its
origins. Second, it will address the three prevalent misunderstandings in the field.
Third, it will make the case that any meaningful discussion requires the establishment
of a ‘threshold for sense’. Fourth, the paper will make the case that no discussion can
pass this threshold. Fifth, the paper will account for the ontological contradiction
apparent across the literature. Finally, and in light of the previous arguments, the
paper will highlight an alternative approach to migration problems that circumvents
the problems that are intrinsic to the field of environmental change, migration and
displacement.
Calum TM Nicholson is conducting his PhD in the department of Geography at
Swansea University, where he teaches on both undergraduate and master's courses. He has an
MPhil in Migration Studies from St Antony's College, Oxford University, and a BA in
Social Anthropology from Trinity College, Cambridge University. His thesis title is Liberal
Democracy and Social Science in an Era of Equivocation: the elucidatory case of the
'environmental migration' debate.
Panel V
Sarah Nash
Forced migration norms in the context of climate change: a case study of
Somalia
This project looks at inherent difficulties in identification of forced migration due to
climate change from broader migration patterns, particularly in conflict situations.
This leads to a case study of Somalia, providing an example of a protracted refugee
situation heavily influenced by ongoing conflict and severe drought linked to climate
change taking place simultaneously. Evolving international forced migration norms,
which are developing as these concepts and identification problems develop are
considered. The question of the allocation of responsibility is addressed, examining
the (potential) role of international actors and specifically whether the international
human rights regime can or should play a significant role. Theory which explains the
development of norms will be turned to, in order to facilitate this discussion, and the
practices of actors will be evaluated against this theory. In particular, norms and
practices of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) will be utilised.
Sarah Nash holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Vienna (2010), an
MA in German and Politics from the University of Edinburgh (2011) and an MSc in
Human Rights and International Politics from the University of Glasgow (2012). She was
also winner of the Russell Keat Dissertation Prize for Best Dissertation in Politics at the
University of Edinburgh (2011). In 2012, Sarah co-authored a report on human rights
considerations within the committees of the Scottish Parliament as part of the Glasgow
Human Rights Network. Sarah also sits on governance for Amnesty International UK, in a
position which she has held for the past 5 years, in addition to authoring a report on human
rights-based policing in the Scottish context for the organisation in 2011. Currently working
within the Scottish Parliament, Sarah plans to return to academia to begin work on a PhD
next year.
Alice Baillat
A Critical Analysis of Security-Based Discourses on Climate-Induced
Migration in Bangladesh: The Silent on Human Rights
National and international policy debates generally threat migration with fear, and
often refers to climate-induced displacement in and from Bangladesh as a national,
regional and international source of instability. Focusing on security and border
control concerns, such debates have neglected to address the human rights
implications of climate change for a long time. Indeed, despite the growing
international attention, very few steps have been taken to develop human rights-based
mechanisms that can ensure the protection needs of climate-induced migrants and
those they left behind. However, climate change may undermine many fundamental
rights such as the rights to home, to life, to property, to health, and so on. This paper
argues that there is a need to reframe the policy debates about climate-induced
migration from a traditional security perspective to a human rights one, in order to
move forward in the development of effective right-based governance systems.
Alice Baillat began in October 2010 a PhD program in Political Science and
International Relations at Sciences Po Paris, under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Wihtol
de Wenden. She held in 2010 a Master in International Relations from the Sorbonne
University in Paris (France). She is also a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Sustainable
Development (CSD) based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In September 2011, she begins to teach
a course on Environment and International Relations at Sciences Po Paris (Undergraduate
Program). Her research deals with environmental migration in Bangladesh and the related
discursive practices over the last two decades. She analyses the production and evolution of
discourses and their variable influence on perceptions and practices, depending on context and
social authority of producers of those discourses. Thus, her PhD aims to address the “reality
effects” of ideas and the impacts of discursive practices on political action in Bangladesh.
Johannes Herbeck (co-author Silja Klepp)
Negotiating Climate Change and Migration in the European Union and the
Pacific
Given the apparent discrepancy between historically high greenhouse‐gas emissions
by the OECD world and expected higher impacts of climate change in countries of
the global South, debates on climate change and migration bear the potential of
demanding recognition for people impacted by climate change and potentially forced
to leave their homes. An increasing institutionalization of the debate offers new
arenas of negotiation, in which struggles of ecological and post‐colonial justice are
fought and new rights are negotiated. First, the paper analyzes policy papers of the
European Union, concluding that up to date, environmental migration is mainly
framed as extraterritorial development and security issue, thereby weakening links to
‘climate justice’ and human rights debates. Rather, the debate is easily connectable to
the criticized tendency in European migration policy towards an increasingly
externalized ‘migration management’, that facilitates ‘desirable’ migration and hands
over the delicate prevention of ‘illegal’ migration to the responsibilities of third
countries. Building on concepts of a ‘legal anthropology of emergence’, the paper
then widens the view geographically and actor‐wise and discusses negotiation
processes around migration strategies and new rights for ‘climate change refugees’ in
Oceania. Here, the anticipation of rising sea‐levels has pushed forward debates about
suitable ways in which the citizens of low‐lying atoll states could prepare for the
future. Based on fieldwork in Kiribati and New Zealand, the article analyzes regional
debates and already existing migration programs connected to climate change
discourses, which often feature a much clearer focus on human rights and climate
justice.
Johannes Herbeck studied geography, political science and sociology in Munich and is a
qualified geographer. His work experience includes an internship in Sri Lanka at the GIZ
(Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, formerly GTZ), an association for
international co-operation, where he was involved in a project called „Food Security and
Conflict Transformation“. Furthermore, he worked as a scientific assistant at the Leibniz
Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT) in Bremen. Since 2008, Johannes Herbeck is a
Junior Researcher and PHD student at the artec Research Centre for Sustainability Studies
at the University of Bremen. His PhD thesis focuses on responses of humanitarian
organisations to climate change using West Africa as an example. He is a member of the
Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). His fields of research include political ecology and
migration.
Silja Klepp is a social anthropologist and an Associate Scientist/Postdoc at the artec
Research Centre for Sustainability Studies at the University of Bremen. Her field research
experience includes countries such as Kiribati, Vanuatu, New Zealand, Italy, Libya, Malta,
and Zambia. Her main interest is the design and realisation of innovative empirical research
projects in emotionally charged and politically sensitive fields. In 2012, she won the
Christiane Rajewsky Award of the German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies for
her PhD on refugees and border control in the Mediterranean Sea. She is member of the
German Young Academy of Scientists (Die Junge Akademie). Her fields of research include
migration and refugees, European migration and border policies, climate change in the
humanities, legal anthropology, political ecology and STS.
Michele Manocchi
From “real story” to “right story”: when one's own story must be silenced
After an interview with a special Commission, the asylum seeker obtains a residence
permit, and he can access forms of support provided. This model produces a rugged
labelling process, in addition to the chronically under-sized system of support in Italy.
The theme of relationship between asylum and climate changes is totally absent
among institutions and NGOs. Many of the people I met during my fieldwork, came
from Somalia and Sudan where there is a vicious circle among environmental
disasters, social-political degradation, conflicts and displacement, but these aspects
remain entirely in the shade. Besides, climate changes cannot be used as reason of
asylum request during Commission interview. The asylum seeker adopts coping
strategies to preserve his identity stability but also to pursue his targets. He learns the
need to produce Sright stories, able to find a place in the conceptual horizon of the
landing country.
Michele Manocchi earned a doctorate in Comparative Social Research from the
University of Turin in 2010 (title of doctoral thesis: "Asylum seekers and refugees. The case
of Turin (Italy). Paths of identity reconstruction") after graduating in Political Sciences from
the University of Turin in 2005. His research interests focus on three main areas: social
policies for asylum seekers and refugees; immigration and Italian welfare system changes;
evaluation and monitoring of projects funded by European Fund for Refugees. In his research
activities he primarily uses qualitative research techniques. Michele also holds courses in
methodology of the social sciences at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society and at
the Faculty of Political Science, University of Turin. In the field of methodology his current
interests are in the sociology and anthropology visual and the use of the video camera in focus
group and participant observation.
Panel VI
Teresa Thorp
Constitutionalism of Climate Justice: Towards An International Legal
Framework for Responding to Climate Induced Migration and Displacement
This paper presents an extract from a much broader project on a uniform
constitutional model of international climate law. The paper focuses on two main
issues. First, the paper reviews the relevance of international environmental law to
human mobility. Part 1 of the paper sets out the background and puts the issues of
climate migration into a legal context. Next, the paper sets out a normative
framework of rights for climate migrants. Part 2 shows how a unified constitutional
model of legal principles of international climate law derived from the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change may guarantee and fulfil climate related
migrant rights. In sum, a unified constitutional model of the legal principles of
international climate law may establish a lex specialis framework applicable to
international climate displacement. As a contribution to the current endeavour, the
paper proposes a normative response that extends beyond individual human rights to
incorporate the rights of all people whom may face climatic pestilence. In doing so, it
may hold one of the reins to “climate justice” and an Ius Communes constitution of
international climate law.
Teresa Thorp is a researcher in international climate law at Utrecht University, The
Netherlands. She is based at the Institute for Constitutional and Administrative Law,
Centre for Environmental Law and Policy/Netherlands Institute of the Law of the Sea,
Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance. Teresa's professional career spans more than
20 years in international trade, investment and sustainable development law. She has
qualifications in engineering, law, economics and business.
Ritumbra Manuvie
Climate Change and Human Rights: Role of Courts in the event of climate
change
Climate change litigation is evidently proving to be a potential source for
implementing tailored green-house-gas mitigation caps on industrial actors, however,
judicial systems across the world has kept themselves at a safe distance from the
climate change and human rights debate. The basic problem in determining the
specific victims and perpetrator of climate change has remained the major challenge.
With cases like Inuit people of Alaska and Kvelina people going to judicial and
human rights forum, it is becoming evident that more and more people will take
recourse of judiciary to seek compensation or to protect themselves of human rights
violation due to climate change. While it is easier for designated indigenous
populations to pursue the litigation successfully, it is unlikely that the global poor
vulnerable to climate change can represent itself as a particular community in a civil
litigation for compensation. On the other hand the power of judiciary to take
cognizance of gross human rights violation is seriously crippled due to uncertainty in
determining a particular victim and an offender directly related to each other and by
the complex co-relation between cause and effect of climate change which is at times
beyond ‘reasonable foreseeability’ as understood in legal terms. Through this paper
the researcher propose to determine the potential role of judiciary in indicting state
and non-state actors for climate change offences. The researcher will be analysing
India judicial system due to country's high vulnerability to climate change and a
prominent contribution of Indian judiciary in existing environmental jurisprudence. It
is noteworthy that while Indian judiciary has many a times gone out of its way in
upholding and ‘implementing’ human rights values and environmental sanctity, there
has been no dedicated climate change litigation initiated in India so far.
Ritumbra Manuvie is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Edinburgh, School of
Law. She is pursuing her research in the area of climate change and human rights. She is
particularly keen at exploring the role of domestic judicial and non-judicial systems in India,
USA and Europe to provide justice to victims of climate change. Towards her second year she
wants to investigate the response of domestic courts and National Human Rights authorities
towards people facing special vulnerability due to climate change. She has been awarded a
Commonwealth Ph.D Scholarship to conduct this research. Prior to Ph.D she has been an
Assistant Professor at various Law Schools in India, teaching Environmental Law and
International Law to undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Rosa Enn
The chance for Environmental Justice for the Indigenous Dao?
In Taiwan, environmental changes are mostly caused by human intervention in
nature. Indigenous peoples are particularly affected, as they primarily live in remote
areas that are rich in natural resources and they often lack the same political, social,
and civil rights as the majority population. This paper highlights the empowerment of
the indigenous Tao who have had to deal with environmental injustice in terms of the
exploitation of their homeland Orchid Island. The storage of radioactive waste
without the locals’ approval and the overharvesting of flora and fauna had far
reaching consequences on the Tao’s cultural and economic structures. With
democratization and empowerment, the cessation of the delivery of nuclear waste
barrels was achieved and compensation payments guaranteed. This again led to their
strong dependency on the financial benefits and the avoidance of the establishment
of an own economy. The presented PhD project elaborates strategies together with
the Tao to approach environmental justice and to create new income sources in order
to liberate the islanders from their dependency on monetary compensation.
Rosa Enn was born in 1981 in Salzburg, Austria. She is currently living in Vienna,
Austria, where she is enrolled in a PhD program at the Institute of Social Anthropology,
part of the University of Vienna. As part of those studies she also lived for an extensive
period in Taipei, Taiwan, where she is a PhD Research Fellow at the Academia Sinica.
Rosa Enn’s main interest and field of expertise are indigenous peoples, especially with regard
to their social, cultural, and legal positions within national and international discourses. In
her doctoral thesis, she attempts to develop methods to approach environmental justice,
working together with an indigenous community in Taiwan which faces ecological exploitation
of their native territory by forcing a nuclear waste dumpsite on their home land. Beside her
studies, she is currently working on a documentary movie about Taiwan’s indigenous peoples
and their empowerment and writes a novel about her grandparents’ life.
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