UNHCR and protection and assistance for the victims of climate change ELISA FORNAL E* AND CURTIS F J DOEBBLER†,‡ *Centre for Migration Law, Radboud University, Montessorilaan 10, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands E-mail: [email protected] †Faculty of International Relations, Webster University, 15, Route de Collex, 1293 Bellevue, Switzerland ‡Department of Law, University of Makeni, PO Box 2, Azzolini Highway, Makeni, Northern Province, Sierra Leone E-mail: [email protected] This paper was accepted for publication in June 2016 This contribution argues that despite the fact that the United Nations Refugee Convention does not cover persons subject to climate change induced displacement, these people should be protected by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This is the case because UNHCR’s own Executive Committee has incorporated the broader African definition of a refugee that does include climate refugees into their protection mandate. We therefore conclude that UNHCR should exercise protection activities over climate refugees to be consistent with the mandate given to this United Nations programme by international law. To arrive at this conclusion we first briefly introduce the question about the protection of climate change induced displacement in the social science debate. We examine the legal definitions of refugees, agreeing with the most common interpretations of both United Nations and regional instruments. We then indicate how, by expressly extending its mandate, UNHCR itself has taken on the responsibility for the protection of people subject to climate change induced displacement. Finally, we report how, despite this mandate, UNHCR is still refusing to exercise its mandate properly, and that if it were to do so, a significant step could be taken in ensuring the protection of people subject to climate change induced displacement. KEY WORDS: UNHCR, legal protection, climate change induced displacement The CCID debate in social sciences C limate change induced displacement (CCID) refers to the movement of persons who are forced to leave their place of habitual residence due to the adverse effects of both direct and indirect climate change (Barnett and Webber 2009). The significance of climate induced displacement is indicated in Global estimates 2014: people displaced by disasters, which notes that in 2013: rapid-onset disasters associated with climatic and weather hazards such as floods, storms and wildfires, and geophysical hazards such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, displaced 21.9 million people ... [t] his is almost three times as many as newly displaced by conflict and violence in 2013. IDMC and Norwegian Refugee Council (2014) Even if many academic publications raise questions about the persistent lack of rigorous figures for persons subject to CCID (Methmann and Oels 2015, 55–6; Bose and Lunstrum 2014, 5; Bettini 2013, 67), it is hard to disagree with the statement by the then UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ant onio Guterres, who warned in 2009 ‘that climate change will become the biggest driver of population displacements, both inside and across national borders, within the not too distant future’ (UNHCR 2009). CCID is a human adaptation strategy (McLeman 2013, 3), but also one that is forced upon people involuntarily. A person subjected to CCID does not merely decide to leave his or her place of residence, but is forced to do so because of the changing climate. As pointed out by Gemenne, just as in the case of the persecution from which traditional refugees are fleeing, climate change is caused by human activity (Gemenne 2015). Several scholars have described this as the anthropogenic component of natural processes that have to be embedded ‘within social, political and cultural’ implications for affected populations The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). © 2016 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). The Geographical Journal, Vol. 183, No. 4, December 2017, pp. 329–335, doi: 10.1111/geoj.12193
UNHCR and protection and assistance for the victims of climate change
Jul 11, 2023
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