Environmentally induced migration

Das Forschungszentrum Nachhaltigkeit ist eine Zentrale Wissenschaftliche Einrichtung der Universität Bremen. Es wurde 1989 zunächst als Forschungszentrum Arbeit und Technik (artec) gegründet. Seit Mitte der 90er Jahre werden Umweltprobleme und Umweltnormen in die artec-Forschung integriert. Das Forschungszentrum bündelt heute ein multi-disziplinäres Spektrum vonvorwiegend sozialwissenschaftlichen -Kompetenzen auf dem Gebiet der Nachhaltigkeitsforschung. "artec" wird nach wie vor als ein Teil der Institutsbezeichnung beibehalten.

The thesis examines the phenomenon of environmental migration, which has been representing a moot issue worldwide since the second half of the last century. In fact, climate change has progressively become a source of serious concern, involving, among the push factors that provoke the displacement, natural catastrophes, desertification, glacier zone retreating, sea-level raise, etc, due both to human activity and natural action. In this light, future numerical predictions amount to 150 millions of climate-related migrants in 2050, fleeing from Africa, America, Asia, and Pacific Islands. Since an agreed definition of “environmental migrants” is still missing, and fundamental human rights, such as the right to life, health, food, water, self-determination, and housing, are jeopardised, there is evidence of a lack of protection. In order to fill it, this work analyses the existing legal instruments, aimed to cover similar categories of persons through a comparison between theories that support the inclusion of climatic migrants under the universal 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, regional refugee instruments, or the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, and theories that exclude it. Moreover, the dissertation considers the hypothesis of a recognition under the UNHCR mandate, the creation of a new ad hoc Convention, or principles. The conclusions highlight the exclusion of environmental migrants under existing legal instruments, the relevance of a coordination between universal and local approach, as well as the effectiveness of the response entailing the creation of a new specific Convention. However, in the current international context, it is likely that States would only agree on a mere soft law instrument.

Despite their rising numbers, people displaced by environmental events receive little formal recognition in international law or policy.  This article considers that this may be due, in part, to a failure among the international community—academics, human rights lawyers, and policymakers—to settle on a clear and robust politicized definition of ‘environmentally displaced persons’ built around the circumstances of their displacement. Without a clear definition of environmentally displaced persons that recognizes the deeply political nature of the challenge they present, this article suggests that the international community will be challenged to afford this vulnerable migrant group the rights and recognition they deserve.  The article first engages in a brief analysis of the common trends in conceptualizing and defining environmentally displaced people, particularly as they relate to international refugee law. I argue that the dominant trend is to employ a depoliticized or ‘naturalized’ understanding of environmental displacement that does not adequately capture its political complexity.  I then offer a four-category, politicized approach to understanding environmental displacement that rejects the unhelpful term “environmental refugee” and seeks to capture both the political drivers and the complexity of human displacement driven by climate change.

Although much research on climate change has focused on its disproportionate effects on the Global South, communities—particularly indigenous populations—within "developed" nations in the Global North can also face significant effects and inadequate assistance. One example is the native village and city of Kivalina in northwest Alaska. Through a case study of Kivalina, this article explores the gaps in U.S. policy for relocating Alaska Natives due to the effects of climate change. There is currently no policy in place—within the United States or internationally—for the resettlement of communities displaced by climate change. And in the United States there is no lead agency in charge of relocating displaced communities, despite several U.S. government reports stating that at least four Alaska Native villages, including Kivalina, must be resettled due to warming Arctic temperatures and erosion. This leaves government agencies in charge of assisting villages like Kivalina, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, who are responsible for helping ensure Kivalina's safety but are not empowered to innovate new procedures and holistically address what is an unprecedented problem: climate change. This has left Kivalina in what is termed here an administrative orbit, with residents made to work their way through a patchwork of various government programs and procedures that are time-consuming and often insufficient. In exploring these intra-national inequities, this article examines how a protocol specifically designed for those displaced by climate change, such as "climigration," could be merged with existing government efforts around emergency management to help prevent disasters before they occur, and to protect at-risk communities like Kivalina.

Bien que la majorité de la recherche sur le changement climatique a mis l'accent sur ses effets disproportionnés sur les pays du Sud, les communautés autochtones dans les pays dits développés dans le Nord mondiale peuvent aussi être confrontés des effets significatifs et l'assistance inadéquate. Un exemple est le village de Kivalina au nord-ouest de l'Alaska, États-Unis. Cet article explore les lacunes dans la politique américaine pour la relocalisation autochtones de l'Alaska en raison des effets du changement climatique. Il n'existe actuellement aucune politique américaine ou internationale pour la réinstallation des communautés déplacées par le changement climatique. Et aux Etats-Unis, il n'existe pas d'organisme principal en charge de réinstaller les communautés déplacées. Ceci malgré le fait que plusieurs rapports du gouvernement américain a identifié quatre villages autochtones de l'Alaska (y compris les Kivalina) qui doivent être réinstallés en raison du réchauffement des températures de l'Arctique et l'avancé d'érosion du littoral. Plusieurs organismes gouvernementaux sont donc en charge d'aider les villages comme Kivalina, tels que la Federal Emergency Management Agency et l'Army Corps of Engineers. Ils sont responsables de contribuer à assurer la sécurité des habitants Kivalina, mais ils n'ont pas le pouvoir à innover, et à aborder tous les aspects des impacts du changement climatique. Cela a laissé Kivalina dans une «orbite administrative». Les résidents ont à travailler dans un patchwork de divers programmes gouvernementaux et des procédures qui prennent du temps et sont souvent insuffisants. En explorant ces inégalités intra-nationales, cet article examine comment un protocole spécialement conçu pour les personnes déplacées par le changement climatique, tels que «climigration», pourrait être fusionné avec les efforts actuels du gouvernement autour de la gestion des urgences pour aider à prévenir les catastrophes avant qu'elles ne surviennent, et de protéger les communautés à risque, comme Kivalina.

Aunque buena parte de la investigación sobre el cambio climático se ha enfocado en sus efectos desproporcionados sobre los países menos desarrollados (Países del Sur), las comunidades ubicadas en los países "desarrollados" - particularmente las poblaciones indígenas- en los Países del Norte también pueden enfrentar efectos significativos y una ayuda inadecuada. Un ejemplo de esto es la población indígena y ciudad de Kivalina en el noroeste de Alaska. Mediante este estudio de caso sobre Kivalina, este ensayo explora las diferencias en la política estadounidense para reubicar a los indígenas de Alaska debido a los efectos del cambio climático. Hoy en día no se ha establecido una política- ni dentro de los Estados Unidos ni a nivel internacional- para el reasentamiento de las comunidades desplazadas por el cambio climático. No existe una dependencia principal en los Estados Unidos encargada de reubicar a las comunidades desplazadas, a pesar de varios reportes del gobierno de los Estados Unidos indicando que por lo menos cuatro poblados indígenas de Alaska, incluyendo Kivalina, deben reubicarse debido al calentamiento de las temperaturas Árticas y a la erosión. Esto deja a las dependencias gubernamentales a cargo de ayudar a poblaciones como Kivalina, como la Agencia Federal para el Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA, por sus siglas en inglés) y el Cuerpo de Ingenieros del ARMY, quienes son responsables de garantizar la seguridad de Kivalina pero no tienen la suficiente autoridad para crear nuevos procedimientos y tratar holísticamente lo que es un problema sin precedentes: el cambio climático. Esto ha colocado a Kivalina en lo que aquí se conoce como una órbita administrativa, donde los residentes tienen que buscar la manera a través de una mezcla de varios programas y procedimientos gubernamentales que conllevan demasiado tiempo y a menudo no son suficientes. Al explorar estas desigualdades transnacionales, este estudio examina la manera en que un protocolo como la "climigración", que fue diseñado específicamente para aquellos desplazados por el cambio climático, puede combinarse con esfuerzos gubernamentales que ya existen para el manejo de emergencias con el fin de ayudar a prevenir desastres antes de que ocurran y proteger a comunidades en riesgo como Kivalina.

La rivoluzione verde e le politiche agricole a essa collegate hanno significato un aumento nella produzione di cibo a livello mondiale, ma sono state anche causa di un’ulteriore dipendenza dei paesi del Sud del mondo nei confronti di quelli del Nord: hanno, in questo modo, contribuito all’esaurimento di risorse biologiche e al degrado di intere aree naturali. Ciò ha determinato, come nelle zone della Mesopotamia, una radicale modifica dell’habitat del territorio. La popolazione indigena degli arabi delle paludi, Arab al-Ahwar ha subito violentemente gli effetti di queste politiche agricole scellerate che, congiuntamente a motivi razziali, hanno generato un progressivo esodo da queste terre.

Motivated by growing public and policy concerns with the social implications of climate change, this chapter reviews theory and research on the environmental dimensions of human migration. Recent research on migration-environment connections employs a variety of methods including time series analysis to capture the dynamic nature of migrant flows, multilevel modeling to account for nested data structures, agent-based modeling to incorporate feedback mechanisms, and qualitative ethnographic approaches to investigate causal pathways between environmental triggers and migration responses. Historical analogs and research in disaster settings have also provided useful insight. Findings reveal that the natural environment can act as a ‘push’ factor when livelihoods are challenged by chronic long-term, or rapid onset, environmental change. Scholarly work also stresses the reciprocal impacts of migration on the environment, with negative and positive ecosystem effects in both origin and destination communities. Finally, recent research has employed empirical simulation of migration as related to projected environmental scenarios, suggesting future increases in environmentally-influenced migration flows. However, the study of the migration-environment connection is still nascent and a number of areas deserve additional research attention. These include investigation of migration form and distance (domestic vs. international), rural-urban linkages, health aspects, and social inequalities as both amplifier and implication of environmental migration. In closing, we draw attention to the disconnect between scientific studies and policy debates and call for an increase in interdisciplinary collaborations, bridging the natural – social science divide and fostering interactions with advocacy groups and policymakers.

Even though anthropogenic climate change is largely caused by industrialized nations, its burden is distributed unevenly with poor developing countries suffering the most. A common response to livelihood insecurities and destruction is migration. Using Peter Singer's ‘historical principle’, this paper argues that a morally just evaluation requires taking causality between climate change and migration under consideration. The historical principle is employed to emphasize shortcomings in commonly made philosophical arguments to oppose immigration. The article concludes that none of these arguments is able to override the moral responsibility of industrialized countries to compensate for harms that their actions have caused.

An increasing number of male migrants are taking part in intra- and inter-regional migration in Asia, leaving their wives behind at home. Their wives, whom we call emigrant wives, often adapt to new roles and responsibilities and thus undergo empowerment in the migration process. This paper examines the impact of male migration on the empowerment of emigrant wives by comparing and contrasting the experiences of emigrant wives vis-à-vis non-emigrant wives. The research identifies and describes four major areas where emigrant wives tend to engage in the absence of their migrant husbands: access to economic resources, physical mobility, residential independence and decision-making role in key family affairs. Empirically, this study draws on fieldwork at two migration-source villages in Bangladesh. The study reports that emigrant wives gain new experiences in dealing with family and wider society in comparison with non-emigrant wives, and thus that migration exposes them to processes of greater empowerment.

The world is witnessing some of the largest refugee flows since the Second World War. Meanwhile, water crises are highlighted as one of the most pressing global challenges. In this context, migration and refugee flows are increasingly explained in terms of water scarcity – perpetuated by climate change. This Working Paper argues that easy answers to complicated questions should be avoided, and that deeper analysis is needed.

This chapter reports findings from a systematic review of 183 scholarly articles published in the English language on the environmental change-international migration nexus spanning the period from 1989–2015. We organized the articles into five main categories: (1) empirical research, (2) theoretical/conceptual frameworks, (3) legal papers, (4) policy papers, and (5) literature reviews. In addition to descriptive statistics regarding disciplinary affiliations, world regions, and types of environmental factors examined, we review the main debates and emerging issues among articles within each category, as well as discussions among scholars about appropriate institutional frameworks and policy responses. We observe a growing plurality of approaches and perspectives, which is contributing to increasingly complex and enriched understandings of the linkages between environment and migration. We also note a growing number of securitization discourses on migration and environmental change, a move toward depoliticization of discussions about climate change-related migration, and increasing calls for practical policy responses; given such trends, a key challenge scholars face is how to reconcile these increasingly divergent scholarly perspectives so as to enable the generation of progressive policy responses in practice.
Key words: international environmental migration, systematic literature review, environmental migration research, depoliticization of climate-induced migration, migration policy

As migrações humanas induzidas por causas ambientais não são novidade na história humana. A novidade, porém, é o aumento exponencial desse tipo de movimento migratório pelo mundo. De acordo com dados do International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC, 2015), apenas no ano de 2014 novas 19,3 milhões de pessoas foram forçadas a migrar em todo mundo em decorrência de fatores ambientais, sem contar as pessoas que já haviam migrado nos anos anteriores por razões relacionadas ao meio ambiente.
Embora o tema não seja novo, os questionamentos jurídicos recentes preocupavam-se mais com a nomenclatura a ser utilizada para esse grupo de migrantes do que propriamente com formas de se buscar ampará-los nos instrumentos normativos de direito interno e internacional. Por esse motivo, a tese de doutorado defendida e aprovada com distinção na Faculdade de Direito da USP buscou aprofundar o tema a partir das formas pelas quais o direito internacional pode, efetivamente, conferir direitos aos “refugiados ambientais” ao invés de se limitar a discutir se eles são ou não refugiados nos termos da Convenção da ONU sobre o Estatuto dos Refugiados (1951).

Abstract
Environmentalism as a global agenda has gained currency particularly in the aftermath of 1970s when some international events on environmental issues took place around the world. The diverse theoretical perspectives have been advanced to understand the rise of environmental agenda at global level and its consequential impact on sovereign states. It has increasingly been claimed by the scholars of neoliberal institutional theory that the environmental problems are such issues that can attract the attention of the whole world and generate cooperation among nation states for its solution. But how far this assertion is true is the test of time. This paper is a benign step in the direction of conducting this test. The neo-liberal institutional theory, which is fully supportive of this claim, has been systematically analyzed in this paper and its basic assumptions have been juxtaposed with the real world situation arising out of environmental crisis to point out how state’ behavior/sovereignty gets modified to accommodate burden resulted from global environmental crisis. It has been observed in this paper that in order to fully appraise the global environmental agenda, the basic assumptions of neo-liberal institutional theory, which have by and large remained successful in explaining the global environmental agenda, need to be refined and strengthened further.

Evidence is increasing that climate change and variability may influence human migration patterns. However, there is less agreement regarding the type of migration streams most strongly impacted. This study tests whether climate change more strongly impacted international compared to domestic migration from rural Mexico during 1986–99. We employ eight temperature and precipitation-based climate change indices linked to detailed migration histories obtained from the Mexican Migration Project. Results from multilevel discrete-time event-history models challenge the assumption that climate-related migration will be predominantly short distance and domestic, but instead show that climate change more strongly impacted international moves from rural Mexico. The stronger climate impact on international migration may be explained by the self-insurance function of international migration, the presence of strong migrant networks, and climate-related changes in wage difference. While a warming in temperature increased international outmigration, higher levels of precipitation declined the odds of an international move.

This paper examines the role of environmental change as a driver of migration, a central concern of areas of inquiry ranging from the Human Dimensions of Global Change research to population geography and development studies. Although much of the literature on the role of the environment in migration reflects a general awareness that environmental factors are but one of a suite of influences shaping migration decisionmaking, a framework within which to place social, economic, and environmental issues with regard to particular migration decisions is absent from this literature. Drawing upon recent contributions to the literature on migration, and political ecological concerns for access to and control over resources, in this paper I present a framework for placing such issues founded on a Foucauldian conceptualization of power. This framework treats environment, economy, and society as both products of and productive of social differentiation, instrumental modes of power, and resistance. These forms shape actors' understanding and negotiation of their social, economic, and environmental contexts, and therefore their migration decisionmaking. I illustrate the application of this framework through the example of three villages in Ghana's Central Region, where rural environmental and economic changes appear to have driven a complex pattern of outmigration over the past thirty-five years. This migration shows the ways in which environmental change becomes inseparable from local perceptions of economy and local politics through local manifestations of power.

A critical evaluation of the contribution of interviews to the study of climate and environmental migrations in Northern Africa. (LSE MSc: MY405/MY505: Research Methods for Evaluation in Health, Development and Public Policy Assessed Essay Example)

Environmental refugees" are non-conventional refugees and forced migrants, internally or internationally, temporarily or permanently, in a situation of vulnerability, and that are forced to leave their homes for environmental reasons, of slow or rapid onset, caused by natural or anthropogenic reasons, or a combination of both. Although there is no specific recognition and protection to these migrants under international law on a global scale, some regional legal instruments and national laws recognize and protect them. The main argument of this doctoral thesis is that "environmental refugees" are under general protection in certain areas of international law and that the current and future possibilities for specific protection can be found in the primary sources of international law, referred to in Article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. Seven protective pathways for "environmental refugees" were identified in international law and in domestic law: by means of (i) humanitarian action, (ii) complementary protection, (iii) national law, (iv) climate justice, (v) shared responsibility, (vi) judicialization of "environmental asylum", and (vii) the international treaty. It is also suggested that a comprehensive global environmental migration governance be established, based on international regimes and by action of actors at local, national, regional and international levels, for the implementation of the forms of protection and to meet the needs of "environmental refugees" worldwide.

The remittances provided by migrant members of households are frequently celebrated as a positive force for community development and for disaster recovery. Using empirical evidence provided by Filipino migrants living in Canada regarding their remittance behaviour in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, this chapter considers the environment-migration nexus in the context of transnational linkages and the role that remittances play in reducing a household’s environmental risk, and assisting in disaster relief. We complicate the idea that migrant remittances are a panacea by highlighting inequities and burdens that can exist within transnational households and communities. A transnational framework provides a useful lens to deepen understanding of the complexities of the mobility-immobility spectrum in the context of environmental challenges.
Key words: remittances, transnationalism, transnational social fields, disaster relief, risk reduction, Filipino, Typhoon Haiyan