The Climate Displacement Gap: A Survey of Legal Options for the Protection of Individuals Displaced by Natural Disaster and Slow-Onset Climate Change

by Adina Appelbaum
Twitter: @abappelbaum


Source: © Reuters/Adrees Latif

Crisis after crisis, natural and climate change-related disasters such as floods, droughts, and storms have displaced people from their homes in countries around the world. Though a causal link between any weather event and climate change is difficult to prove, climatologists have long believed that climate change will result in an increase in extreme weather events. Floods, droughts, and storms almost always impact the lives of individuals, forcing them to flee their homes as a result of safety or reduced food supply, among other factors. In 2005 for example, Hurricane Katrina left a wake of more than 400,000 displaced residents. In 2010, over 20 million people were affected, and 8 million displaced, by the floods in Pakistan. In addition to these more immediate natural disasters, slow-onset climate change-related disasters such as drought, desertification, salination of groundwater, and the rise of sea levels have contributed to massive displacement worldwide. Decreased agricultural output and the collapse of fisheries have also been indirectly linked to climate change. For example, slow-onset climate change in the Sahel, namely erratic rainfall, combined with high food prices, led to a food crisis in 2012 that left 18 million people without sufficient food and put one million children at risk of starvation.

Connection to Human Rights

Climate displacement implicates human rights by threatening lives, food security, livelihoods, water access, health, and safety, among other critical needs. Women, children, and other vulnerable populations are often disproportionately affected. Additionally, underlying factors such as poverty, social injustice, and weak government capacity to respond greatly exacerbate a country’s ability to prevent displacement and protect those who become displaced, once vulnerable to climate change. In the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, for example, incredible rates of poverty and weak human rights institutions have intensified the impacts of climate change exposure. The 2010 Pakistan floods particularly demonstrated need for better international human rights transparency, institutions, and monitoring, and the creation of mechanisms that allow for the resolution of human rights issues in the context of climate displacement. In this light, the challenges of climate displacement must be seen as implicating existing human rights instruments such as the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)  and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), in addition to new frameworks.

Climate displacement can be a means to work with governments to strengthen their human rights institutions and commitments: it may be easier to advocate for human rights to governments in terms of climate change rather than political upheavals. One option is to encourage countries to incorporate human rights standards into natural disaster law and policies. For example, Daniel Petz, Senior Research Assistant on Natural Disasters of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement has worked with various governmental disaster managers to incorporate the IASC Operational Guidelines on the Protection of Persons in Situations of Natural Disasters in national disaster law and policies, which promote and facilitate a rights-based approach to disaster relief.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: A Risky Step Forward for Youth Immigrant Rights

by Adina Appelbaum

Twitter: @abappelbaum

On July 15, 2012, the Obama Administration announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative, a program that has the potential to help as many as 1.76 million young immigrants avoid deportation and obtain work authorization for two years.  To qualify for the program, individuals must be under the age of 31; have arrived in the U.S. before turning 16 and resided in the country for at least five years; be enrolled in or have graduated from high school (or have a GED or be a veteran); and have no felonies or significant misdemeanors, among other requirements.

Undocumented students line up at Navy Pier to apply for deferred action.

Source: John H. White, Chicago Sun-Times

DACA represents a step in the right direction for child and young adult immigrant rights. In the short-term, applicants granted deferred action may be free from deportation, obtain crucial employment authorization and a Social Security number, have an incentive to stay in school, and be able to “come out” from living in the shadows of lacking proper legal documentation.

On the other hand, the significant uncertainty of DACA as a discretionary presidential action, which makes no permanent legal change in a person’s immigration status, means there is a substantial chance it could do more harm than good. The risks are even greater for unaccompanied children. The precarious nature of DACA is arguably not in line with the intentions of Articles II and III of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to prohibit discrimination and promote the best interests of the child. DACA’s weaknesses thus represent an opportunity to illuminate why a more comprehensive immigration reform is needed.