Abstract
Environmental factors, particularly the impacts of climate change, are influencing all aspects of human life, sometimes obliging people to leave their homes and migrate to other places. It is worthy of note that, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 addresses climate change and stresses taking urgent action to combat that and its impacts. This paper endorses and explores the legal status of environmental migrants under international law as well as some regional instruments. It also tries to indicate the existing legal gaps in the context of environmental migration and emphasizing on a rights-based protection regime in order to find more sustainable and effective solutions for environmentally-induced migrants. Indeed, it cannot be ignored that there is a wide range of human rights violations in the context of environmentally-induced cross-border displacement within the receiving states. This is basically attributed to the lack of an appropriate rights-based protection regime in these destination countries in relation to the environmental migration. Furthermore, this study expressly demonstrates that due to the lack of an international binding instrument which specifically deals with the environmentally-induced migration (EIM), the only resolution in this regard would be to identify and promote the existing legal instruments and regulations.
Introduction
The Movement of people as a consequence of changes in the environment is not a new phenomenon. However, it is only in the past 20 years or so that the international community has begun to slowly recognize the wider linkages and implications that a changing climate and environment has on human mobility. The UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) says disasters, storms, floods, and droughts have increased threefold over the past 30 years.
According to another report in 2017, “19.2 million were displaced by natural hazards in 113 countries. The majority of this displacement was caused by extreme weather events due to a record number of droughts, widespread flooding and 90 major tropical storms. Much of this was fueled by a very strong El Niño occurring in the context of climate change which threatens a further 75 million people who live just one meter above sea level” (Glasser and Lacy).
It is generally agreed that global warming will trigger a rise in sea levels which will in turn displace people. According to a 2007 World Bank Study, a sea level rise of a single meter will displace 56 million people in 84 developing countries. All of this evidence highlights the importance of this topic and possible implications that environmental events will have on all aspects of peoples’ lives, particularly migration.
During the last two decades, although scientists and academics have carried out a wide range of research on the nexus between environment and migration, empirical studies have been neglected, and most of the research has focused on one aspect of environmental migration. In fact, these studies are separating environmental factors from other crucial drivers impacting complex migration decision processes.
In addition, many of research studies are not dealing with potential legal solutions and initiatives which are able to deal properly with the negative effects of environmental pressures and climate change implications. However, in this paper, research will focus only on covering this legal gap within relevant sections. Before discussing and analyzing the legal status of environmental migrants it is needed to speak very briefly about legal definition of environmental migration and who can be considered as environmental migrant.
Moreover, it is important to note that though environmental migration can be induced by various types of disasters; this research will concentrate only on natural disasters and climate change-induced environmental events. Other types, like man-made disasters will not be alluded to in this study.
Definition and scenarios of environmental migration
There is no legally agreed definition for environmental migration and it is seen that a variety of terms such as climate change refugee, environmental refugee and climate migrants are used by some academics and the media. Indeed, there is a consensus that environmental factors could drive migration, however these terms especially using the term refugee have some negative implications under international law as according to the 1951 “Geneva Convention” which states that refugee status is based on persecution and that the impacts of environmental factors cannot be considered persecution per se. (Section 1(A) of Geneva Convention states: “A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”)
In addition, environmental factors do not have a discriminative character and they impact people regardless of their race, religion, nationality, and opinion otherwise they would be part of the refugee definition based on five conventional grounds; religion, nationality, race, membership of a particular social group and political opinion. On the other hand, for a person to be granted refugee status he/she needs to cross an international border. While environmental migrants are predominantly displaced internally, there are also cases in which environmental migrants cross international borders and move to other countries. (According to the 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, internally displaced persons are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border.)
Lacking a universal environmental migration definition can be partly attributed to a set of gaps and shortcomings. For instance, difficulty to separate other drivers causing migration from environmental factors; conflict over the tendency to make environmental migration a specific category of migration; lacking an interdisciplinary approach to study linkages between environment and migration will all increase problems with regards to a universal environmental migration definition.
The Article endorses the working definition provided by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) that is: “persons or groups of persons who, for compelling reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their homes or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad” (Laczko and Aghazarm).
Population movements which happen due to both sudden-onset and slow-onset environmental events take different patterns based on the type, intensity, location, duration and the number of affected people. These patterns can be categorized as voluntary-forced, internal-international, temporary-permanent, and vulnerability-resilience.
The rights-based protection and its role in supporting needs of environmental migrants
The implications of environmental threats and existing and potential effects of climate change integrated with policies and programs for mitigation and adaptation strategies involve a set of human and civil rights issues and challenges which need to be addressed through effective legal and normative frameworks based on a rights-based approach. Migration induced by environmental pressures is at the heart of these rights-based concerns which are generated by an essential need to protect the livelihoods and lives of migrants at risk of environmental threats. Thus, a set of socio-economic, political and cultural rights will be included in these rights-based concerns. In this section, due to the lack of a specific international legal framework for environmental migration, the focus will be on assessing potential national, regional, and international legal and normative frameworks and instruments to apply in the context of environmental migration through a lens of a rights-based approach.
Although, our focus here will be on protection of migrant’s needs, it is essential to consider that an effective rights-based protection framework will take into consideration both rights of migrants and those remaining groups who cannot or will not migrate. In other words, these remaining groups are impacted by similar factors such as lack of enough accessibility to land, water and other natural resources, loss of livelihoods, loss of voice, and so forth that requires efforts to protect their social and economic rights. In fact, struggling to enhance adaptation and resilience strategies will lead to considering some elements like livelihoods, properties, well-being, basic services and access to natural resources which are direct or indirect issues of rights protection.
Accessibility to an environment which allows having a life of dignity and well-being can be considered as a fundamental human right. Thus it may likely raise a set of human and civil rights for those whose lives and livelihoods are endangered by environmental threats.
As mentioned above, there is no specific and coherent international framework in terms of migration induced by environmental events. However, a wide range of international human rights agreements and conventions exist in terms of involuntary displacement due to conflict and environmental disasters such as the 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. But it can be seen that there is little chance to create a new national or international instrument or convention to address protection needs of this new environmental migration category. In other words, the most appropriate way to address the needs of environmental migrants will be adapting and developing existing legal norms and legislative frameworks such as in human rights law, environmental law and humanitarian law.
This attitude can have two advantages; firstly, those displaced by environmental factors and the remaining group cannot be considered as a completely new category lacking protection and international support. Secondly, to respond to protection needs of environmental migrants, extending and developing existing institutional capacities and architectures can be an option (Ibid).
From a human rights perspective, environmental events particularly climate-induced changes impact the ability of humans to enjoy internationally protected human rights. A human rights attitude will focus on the needs of the displaced rather than causation factors and therefore would lead to proposing proactive norms and regulations to protect environmental migrants. For example, the right to freedom of movement under the 1948 Universal Declaration of human rights (UNDHR) as one of the most notable instruments in the context of human rights law can be applied in the situation of environmental migrations. Other rights that can be applied to environmental migrants under international human rights law are, right to life, right to water, right to food, right to development, right to property, right of indigenous people and other civil and political rights that may be impacted by environmental stressors and climate change (Ibid).
However, as environmental events cannot be considered a human rights violator, the principal responsibility for protection of rights of environmental migrants will reside on states. In fact, effects of environmental disasters and climate change will weaken the state capacity to protect the rights of people. Human rights will prepare a set of minimum rights that states are obliged to fulfill and when these rights are impacted as a result of environmental threats, it provides a complementary protection which will allow individuals to find protection in other places. It also obliges host countries during the resettlement periods to respect a set of minimum treatment standards towards displaced people.
Environmental law can be applied as an additional and complementary resource alongside human rights law in the context of environmental migration protection. Generally, international environmental law is indirectly proposing protection solutions for environmental displaced people. For instance, it is encouraging states to reduce their carbon emissions polluting the atmosphere and also taking serious steps towards conserving their ecosystems and biodiversity (Mutizwa-Mangiza, et al.).
As a matter of fact, Principle 2 of the Rio Declaration says states are obliged to exploit their natural resources in a way that is not harming the environment of other states or areas beyond their national jurisdiction or according to its Principle 3,” The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations”.
These principles highlight the responsibilities of states to reduce their carbon emissions which can affect climate change and consequently create situations of migratory trends through loss of livelihoods particularly in vulnerable developing countries. However, there are some challenges faced while using environmental law to respond to rights-based protection needs of environmental migrants. For instance, according to international environmental law, the responsibilities will principally reside between states, and individual persons have lesser legal capability in comparison to human rights law. Additionally, since a lot of countries are contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, it will not be easy to determine the share produced by each country.
Nevertheless, according to the restorative justice theory, the countries that are playing the main role in terms of GHGs emissions include developed countries that have primary responsibility to bear adverse consequences of such practices such as migratory effects. This burden sharing mechanism will work according to the “polluter pays principle” stated in Principle 7 of the 1992 Rio Declaration and sustainable development. (States shall cooperate in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the Earth’s ecosystem. In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.)
However, UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol do not have a specific principle concerning protection of migrants displaced directly by environmental effects of climate change. The main responsibility of major producers of carbon emissions that according to historical evidence are most of the current rich countries is to tolerate the costs of migration trends induced by environmental threats and particularly climate change effects which would be in line with the Art. 4 of UNFCCC (Adaptation costs). (Article 4(3) – the developed country Parties and other developed Parties included in Annex II shall provide new and additional financial resources to meet the agreed full costs incurred by developing country Parties in complying with their obligations under Article 12, paragraph 1. They shall also provide such financial resources, including for the transfer of technology, needed by the developing country Parties to meet the agreed full incremental costs of implementing measures that are covered by paragraph 1 of this Article and that are agreed between a developing country Party and the international entity or entities referred to in Article 11, in accordance with that Article. The implementation of these commitments shall take into account the need for adequacy and predictability in the flow of funds and the importance of appropriate burden sharing among the developed country Parties. (4) – The developed country Parties and other developed Parties included in Annex II shall also assist the developing country Parties that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting costs of adaptation to those adverse effects.)
There are also a wide range of subsidiary and complementary international instruments in addition to environmental laws and human rights laws which can be applied to environmental migration. They are mostly offering specific-group rights-based protection that due to their general application can be used, albeit with caution, in some particular situations of environmental displacements. The 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) as well as the 1966 International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) can be featured as the most important instruments among these international legal frameworks.
For example,” article 12 of the 1996 ICCPR regarding freedom of movement and Art. 11 of the 1966 ICESCR about freedom from hunger and improvement of techniques of production, conservation and distributions of food, can be used in environmental displacement conditions particularly in case of gradual environmental changes”. (Article 12(1) – everyone lawfully within the territory of a State shall, within that territory, have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence. 2. Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own. 3. The above-mentioned rights shall not be subject to any restrictions except those which are provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order, (public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others, and are consistent with the other rights recognized in the present Covenant. 4. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country. Article 11(2) – the States Parties to the present Covenant, recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, shall take, individually and through international co-operation, the measures, including specific programmes, which are needed: (a) To improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources; (b) Taking into account the problems of both food-importing and food-exporting countries, to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need.) (Laczko and Aghazarm),
Other relevant instruments and norms can be included such as; Art. 14 of the 1981 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women which looks to ensure participation of rural women in developmental programs, their important roles in economy of family and their equality rights with men which could be used in rural-urban migrations and economic roles of remaining women in the rural areas; articles 22 and 16 of the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers about protection from collective expulsion and violence respectively. (Article 14(1) – states Parties shall take into account the particular problems faced by rural women and the significant roles which rural women play in the economic survival of their families, including their work in the non-monetized sectors of the economy, and shall take all appropriate measures to ensure the application of the provisions of the present Convention to women in rural areas.(2). States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in rural areas in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, that they participate in and benefit from rural development and, in particular, shall ensure to such women the right… Article 16(2) – migrant workers and members of their families shall be entitled to effective protection by the State against violence, physical injury, threats and intimidation, whether by public officials or by private individuals, groups or institutions. Article 22 (1) – migrant workers and members of their families shall not be subject to measures of collective expulsion. Each case of expulsion shall be examined and decided individually. (2) – Migrant workers and members of their families may be expelled from the territory of a State Party only in pursuance of a decision taken by the competent authority in accordance with law.)
Regarding potential environmental migrations induced by sea level rise situations in small island states, there are a range of international agreements and norms addressing protection needs of inhabitants of these states including the 1954 Convention Relating to Stateless persons, the 1991 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the protection mandate of the UNHCR for stateless people (Ibid).
Although, the ad hoc protection principles and frameworks cannot be featured as an effective protection system in relation to environmental displacement, particularly slow-onset environmental degradations, they are sometimes offering some protection solutions to sufferers affected by major natural disasters. For example, some European countries are proposing some kinds of subsidiary protection and humanitarian support to victims of severe catastrophic environmental events. For instance, the 2001 Temporary Protection Directive adopted by the European Council states that temporary residence permit can be granted to the displaced people in the event of a mass influx when these people are unable to return to their country of origin in safe and durable conditions because of situations prevailing in their countries.
According to the Finnish and Swiss immigration regulations, the victims of natural disasters can be granted temporary residence permit if they are not able to return to their places due to unsafe situations in their countries. Outside of Europe, Argentina more recently offered a humanitarian visa in its national law for disaster displaced people (Goodwin-Gill and McAdam). Simultaneously, these specific systems can also increase concerns of the developed world in terms of managing effects of this growing displaced population and may encourage them to take more cautious steps in this connection.
The important role of regional instruments to cover protection gaps of the 1951 Geneva Convention and its 1967 Protocol in course of environmentally-induced migration cannot be overlooked, though in reality this role is not well practiced by relevant states. The 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention (OAU) and the 1984 Cartagena Declaration are the most significant regional instruments offering much broader definitions for involuntary movements. Although, these two instruments were not designed to include environmental migrants, if the environmental events and effects of climate change can be considered events serious enough to “disturb public orders” of relevant states, these refugee instruments may be used in situations of severe environmental pressures and provide protection to people crossing international borders to flee these threats.
However, as mentioned above, while some natural disasters and environmental events can lead to a breakdown in public orders, in practice, relevant state parties to these refugee instruments are not supporting people affected by environmental pressures under these instruments unless there is a linkage between environmental disasters and other factors of displacement mentioned in the definitions (conflict, generalized violence, massive human rights violation). For instance, during the 2011 Somalia drought, many Somali people fled to neighboring countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia. (“Persons who have fled their country because their lives, security or freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order” (The 1984 Cartagena Declaration); “person who, owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of this country of origin or nationality is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his country of origin or nationality” (The 1969 OAU Convention).)
As mentioned above, most EIM cases happen internally, given that international displacement requires more financial resources, social networks in other countries, and longer distance migrations that may hinder most affected people who are financially or physically unable to make the decision to cross international borders due to environmental threats.
From this perspective, the 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement will have considerable importance in relation to protecting and assisting internally displaced populations who can be called IDPs. The Guiding Principle can fill protection gap of the 1951 Geneva Convention and its 1967 Protocol that are covering only international displacement and not internal movements.
Despite this, the 1998 Guiding principles are not binding but integrate different areas of binding international law such as human rights law, international humanitarian law and parts of refugee law. The natural and human-made disasters are directly included in these principles. Thus severe weather events induced by climate change come under the bracket which is very positive. For instance, it can be applied in situations where repetitive climate-related events cause safety risks for residents and force them to leave their homes for survival reasons. According to these principles these displaced people cannot be obliged to return to their homes affected by environmental threats (Laczko & Aghazarm).
Additionally, in some cases an evolutionary interpretation of displacement and protection might also cover environmental degradations. However, the Guiding Principles are only covering the forced displacements and those slow-onset environmental degradations that are more pertinent to economic migrations may not be supported by these principles unless worsening environmental conditions increase survival worries rather than only mere economic reasons leading people to make migration decisions.
These Guiding Principles which have been growingly applied by various national legislative systems will give displaced people the possibility to ask and obtain protection and humanitarian support from national governments and if governments are not able or are reluctant to adequately respond to them, they can seek these rights from the international community. In addition, the Guiding Principles are responding to the IDP’s needs without any discrimination in an equal way with other citizens located in the same country.
For example, the internally displaced people should have access to basic shelter, health care services, food, water, clothing, and public services like other people living in their country. IDPs will not be forced to resettle in a location that will put their lives at risk. In fact, they will enjoy rights to move freely and safely to other parts of their countries or leave and pursue safety in another country.
These various sources of law will raise the question of how these various legal instruments and norms will develop a rights-based protection regime with respect to environmentally displaced people and also those who may remain in the affected region.
To respond to this important question a separation between different types of displacement is required, given that particular protection principles will be applied to respond to each of these various scenarios. As a matter of fact, they can be divided as follows; (i) temporary displacement due to natural disaster; (ii) incremental displacement caused by environmental degradation; (iii) stateless people migrated due to either sudden-onset disasters or slow-onset environmental degradations; (iv) displacement induced by conflicts resulted from shortages of natural resources and; (v) fragility and poverty of remaining groups (Ibid).
It also should be considered that every stage of migration invokes different protection rules such as; (i) preventing or minimizing migration through enhancing adaptation and resilience strategies; (ii) protecting migrants when displacement is happened through appropriate displacement plans, rights-protection practices and involvement of all displaced people and communities in decision making programs and granting temporary or subsidiary protection residence permit to displaced people; (iii) the last stage is managing to find durable solutions such as returning, local integration, or resettlement20. However, these complementary norms and instruments of different strands of law as explained above have the potential to make a preliminary framework of protection guidelines act as a soft law legal system in terms of environmental migration.
In other words, according to reluctance of national governments and international organizations to make a new set of legal norms and instruments in relation to protection and assistance of environmental migrants, this approach may be the most constructive path to fill this gap. Simultaneously, this approach of adapting existing legal frameworks and norms to situations of environmentally-induced migration can provide an additional motivation to develop more coherent international and national protection rights-based regimes in this field (Chazalnoel).As a last point, rights protection practices should follow a bottom-up attitude, being entrenched at local levels.
From this point of view, local governments and civil society institutions are main players in terms of developing and protecting people’s rights in regions affected by environmental events. Nowadays, in the context of EIM, there is a growing trend to enhance governance and civil society structures to further protect the displaced alongside improving adaptation and resilience polices.
In fact, though governments are in charge of protecting people’s rights, responsibility to back the protection of rights will reside with civil society organizations. Moreover, most exposed countries in terms of environmental pressures will be those which are already suffering from poor civil society and rights-based protection structures. Thus, capacity-building activities in these countries are needed to enhance rights protection regimes in addition to develop socio-economic policies.
Legal gaps in case of environmental migration
One of the most significant legal gaps is related to protection of trans-border environmental migrants, particularly permanent ones. In fact, international environmental migrants are placed in the gap existing between Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement related to internal displaced people (IDPs) and stateless instruments. In most cases these trans-border migrants cannot be considered as stateless populations.
Another challenging issue will be emphasizing the environment as a separate and particular driver of migratory movements. According to some arguments, this emphasis will undermine those who are not migrating and will affect their rights protection. In addition, in making the category – climate change-induced environmental migration, a new type of protection needs can hinder activities of extending and adapting existing legal norms and frameworks to respond to protection needs of environmental migrants.
The responsibility debates in case of climate change and other relevant issues such as burden sharing and supply of financial resources to take the steps towards protection needs of environmental migrants will be other concerns with respect to climate change-induced displacements particularly in the developing world.
The urbanization phenomenon and challenges of urban development as well as management of urban areas are introducing other concerns especially in developing countries. Mass rural-urban movements induced by environmental factors are exacerbating the urbanization concerns already caused by huge economic migrations in the last decades. Impacts of EIM can highlight some challenging rights protection issues for environmental displaced populations in urban areas like rights of access to urban lands (Mutizwa-Mangiza, et al).
Another controversial topic may be related to the displaced populations from small state islands. Given that these migrants can be identified as landless, they cannot satisfy the definition of statelessness because they are still enjoying citizenship status of their countries even though their countries are submerged due to the impacts of climate change (Article 1 of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, gives the definition: “For the purpose of this Convention, the term ‘stateless person’ means a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”).
Responding to rights protection needs of migrants in developed countries is to some extent a complex process. In recent years, developed countries on the one hand are struggling to follow their international obligations on refugee protection. On the other hand, they manage their domestic markets and fill their job gaps with unskilled cheap laborers provided by migrant forces. This has led to increasing south-north migration in recent years (Chazalnoel).
However, simultaneously, restrictive regulations and norms and stricter border controls in case of immigration policies will result in different forms of irregular migration such as human trafficking and smuggling, which in most cases can cause terrible human catastrophes particularly for vulnerable groups like women and children (Napier-Moore). From this conclusion, a rights-based protection approach in the developed world can be a combined and complicated process that requires more research activities in this case
Conclusion
Climate change implications will increase environmental migrations, particularly internal movements within the most environmentally-vulnerable developing countries in the future. This great number of environmental migrants urges these most affected countries to focus on the migratory impacts of climate change in their National Development Programs and other relegated policies and strategies.
For example, interconnections between poverty, loss of livelihood, and migration would emphasize substantially on supporting those policies that promote employment, development, and livelihood diversification programs. Recognizing and mapping highly environmental hot-spot regions and promoting community-based and local-level adaptation and resilience measurements will play an important role in preventing or reducing adverse effects of environmental threats.
In fact, specific-region policy solutions should be taken into account as a priority when designing adaptation and coping strategies. On the other hand, regarding environmentally-induced cross-border migration, most destination countries are suffering from the lack of adequate and appropriate legal systems for protection of environmental migrants (Laczko & Aghazarm).
Many human rights of environmental migrants are violated due to the lack of proper rights-based protection regimes in these countries with respect to EIM. While there are various principles and conventions under international human rights law, refugee law, and also internal displacement guiding principles, the lack of an international binding agreement specifically dealing with environmentally-induced migration is on the basis of the incapacity of receiving States to address vulnerabilities in situation of environmental migrations. Promotion and identification of more legal and normative instruments and human security practices focused on a rights-based protection view seems to be an immediate need to manage environmentally induced displacements.
Also, primary responsibility for protecting and assisting affected people will be placed on States. Nonetheless, the role of the international community in this field cannot be neglected. In other words, cooperation and coordination between international, national, and local levels is an essential factor in guaranteeing effectiveness and success of all policy measurements designed to deal with the negative impacts of environmental pressures.
In this case some international agencies such as UNDP, UNEP, IOM, UNHCR, World Bank, and other NGOs can play a significant role in close collaboration with national governments and local communities to provide financial, technical, legal, and operational support aimed at developing resilience and enhancing capabilities of states which are most likely to be affected by environmental threats and climate change impacts.
However, globally speaking, increasing forced environmental migrations will require more coherent and coordinated collaborations between international and national players, particularly in developing countries for the protection and assistance of the most vulnerable populations.
Bibliography
Aghazarm, F. L. (Ed.). (2009). Migration, Environment and Climate Change: Assessing the Evidence. Geneva 19: International Organization for migration (IOM).
Alassane Drabo, L. M. (2011). Climate Change, Natural Disasters and Migration: An Empirical Analysis in Developing Countries. Bonn: IZA.
Alexandra Bilak, e. a. (2016). Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) 2016. Geneva: Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC).
Ali Mirchi, K. M. (2015, January 23). The Guardian. Retrieved November 10, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com
Andrea Milan, S. A. (2011). Environmentally induced Migration and Sustainable Development. 1-29.
Andreas Rechkemmer, e. a. (2016). A Complex Social-Ecological Disaster: Environmentally Induced Forced Migration. Disaster Health, 112-118.
Brain F. Bonnett, e. a. (2016). Implementation. In e. a. Ross J. Salawitch, Paris Climate Agreement:
Beacon of Hope (pp. 147-178). Cham: Springer Nature.
Camilo Boano, R. Z. (2008). Environmentally Displaced People: Understanding the Linkages between Environmental Change, Livelihoods and Forced Migration. Refugee Studies Center, University of Oxford.
Collins, A. E. (2012). Applications of the Disaster Risk Reduction Approach to Migration Influenced By Environmental Change. Elsevier, 112-123.
Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change adaptation in IOM’s Response to Environmental Migration. (2011). Geneva: IOM.
Ellen Hansen, e. a. (Ed.). (2017). Climate Change and Disaster Displacement: An Overview of UNHCR’s Role. UNHCR, 4-14.
Francois Gemenne, P. B. (Ed.). (2014). The State of Environmental Migration 2014. Paris: SciencesPo.
Guy S. Goodwin Gill, J. M. (2017). UNHCR and Climate Change, Disasters and Displacement. Geneva: UNHCR.
Jakobeit, C. (2017). Climate Change, Migration, and Displacement: The Understimated Disaster. (A. C. Joanne Runkel, Trans.) Hamburg: University of Hamburg.
Joanna Depledge, R. L. (Ed.). (2003). Caring for Climate, a Guide o the Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. Bonn: Climate Change Secretariat.
Joern Birkmann, D. C. (2012). Enhancing Early Warning in the Light of Migration and Environment. Elsevier, 76-88.
Justice, M. R.-C. (2016). Human Rights, Migration, and Displacement related to the Adverse Impacts of Climate Change. 1-11.
Kabat, P. (2016, Nonember 10). Retrieved November 6, 2017, from International Institute for Applied System Analysis: www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/about/news/161110-Urmia2.html
Karen Sudmeier-Rieux, e. a. (Ed.). (2017). Identifying Emerging Issues in Disaster Risk Reduction, Migration, Climate Change and Sustainable Development. Switzerland: Springer.
Lewis, G. (2017, March 22). Retrieved November 8, 2017, from UNDP IRAN: www.ir.undp.org/…/lake-urmia-comes-back-to-life-slowly-but-s.
Naison D. Mutizwa-Mangiza, e. a. (2011). Cities and climate change. London, Washington, DC: Earthscan.
Niels Harild, A. C. (2015). Sustainable Refugee Return: Triggers, Constraints, and Lessons on Addressing the Development Challenges of Forced Displacement. Washington DC: The World Bank Group.
Richard Black, e. a. (2012). Migration, Immobility and Displacement Outcomes Following Extreme Events. Elsevier, 32-41.
Roger Zetter, J. M. (2014). Environmental Stress, Displacement and the Challenge of Rights Protection, Forced Migration Review. Oxford: Refugee Studies Center, University of Oxford.
Zetter, R. (2011). Protecting Environmentally Displaced People: Developing the Capacity of Legal and Normative Framework. Oxford: Refugee Studies Center. University of Oxford.
Zetter, R. (2015). Protection in Crisis: Forced Migration and Protection in a Global Era. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Zetter, R. (2017). Impacts and Costs of Forced Displacement Phase II. Oxford: University of Oxford, Refugee Studies Centers.
