Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- About the editors
- About the contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Human security, human rights and human dignity
- Part II Physical and legal security, armed conflict and refuge
- Part III Migration, development and environment
- 7 Empowering migrants: human security, human rights and policy
- 8 Labour migration management and the rights of migrant workers
- 9 Socio-economic rights, human security and survival migrants: Whose rights? Whose security?
- 10 An insecure climate for human security? Climate-induced displacement and international law
- 11 Human security and trafficking of human beings: the myth and the reality
- Part IV National security and the ‘war on terror’
- Index
10 - An insecure climate for human security? Climate-induced displacement and international law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- About the editors
- About the contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Human security, human rights and human dignity
- Part II Physical and legal security, armed conflict and refuge
- Part III Migration, development and environment
- 7 Empowering migrants: human security, human rights and policy
- 8 Labour migration management and the rights of migrant workers
- 9 Socio-economic rights, human security and survival migrants: Whose rights? Whose security?
- 10 An insecure climate for human security? Climate-induced displacement and international law
- 11 Human security and trafficking of human beings: the myth and the reality
- Part IV National security and the ‘war on terror’
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Around the globe, large numbers of people face a credible risk of displacement – either within their own countries or abroad – due to climate change. Island nations across the Central Pacific, South Pacific and the Indian Ocean, as well as large tracts of land from Bangladesh to Egypt, risk partial or complete submergence by the middle of this century. Shoreline erosion, coastal flooding, increasing salinity and the particular vulnerability of small islands to rising sea levels and increased severe weather events compromise their continued habitability, impacting upon agricultural viability, vital infrastructure and services, the stability of governance, and ultimately human settlement.
Whether, and how, people displaced by climate change are protected by international law is unclear. When faced with a novel challenge such as climate-induced displacement, international law might be brought to bear in different ways. To borrow from Roslyn Higgins (writing in the context of terrorism), whether one regards climate-induced displacement ‘as new international law, or as the application of a constantly developing international law to new problems – is at heart a jurisprudential question’.
On the one hand, existing international legal principles might be applied to the situation of those displaced by climate change, regardless of any special characteristics of that affected group. In general, the fundamental protections of international human rights law and international humanitarian law apply to all people, irrespective of whether one is displaced or not (putting to one side certain, more limited, rights such as political participation), and regardless of whether one is internally or externally displaced.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Human Security and Non-CitizensLaw, Policy and International Affairs, pp. 357 - 403Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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