Land Solutions For Climate Displacement

The threat of climate displacement looms large over a growing number of countries. Based on the more than six years of work by Displacement Solutions in ten climate-affected countries, academic work on displacement and climate adaptation, and the country-level efforts of civil society groups in several frontline countries, this report explores the key contention that land will be at the core of any major strategy aimed at preventing and resolving climate displacement. This innovative and timely volume coordinated and edited by the Founder of Displacement Solutions, Scott Leckie, examines a range of legal, policy and practical issues relating to the role of land in actively addressing the displacement consequences of climate change. It reveals the inevitable truth that climate displacement is already underway and being tackled in countries such as Bangladesh, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and the United States, and proposes a series of possible land solution tools that can be employed to protect the rights of people and communities everywhere should they be forced to flee the places they call home.

A practical and empathetic guide to managing the crisis of climate displacement, and pre-empting a mass loss of human rights.

Climate change, sometimes thought of as a problem for the future, is already impacting people’s lives around the world: families are losing their homes, lands and livelihoods as a result of sea level rise, increased frequency and intensity of storms, drought and other phenomena. Following several years of preparatory work across the globe, legal scholars, judges, UN officials and climate change experts from 11 countries came together to finalise a new normative framework aiming to strengthen the right of climate-displaced persons, households and communities. This resulted in the approval of the Peninsula Principles on Climate Displacement within States in August 2013. This book provides detailed explanations and interpretations of the Peninsula Principles and includes in-depth discussion of the legal, policy and programmatic efforts needed to uphold the standards and norms embedded in the Principles. The book provides policy-makers with the conceptual understanding necessary to ensure that national-level policies are in place to respond to the climate displacement challenge, as well as a firm sense of the programme-level approaches that can be taken to anticipate, reduce and manage climate displacement. It also provides students and policy advocates with the necessary information to debate and critique responses to climate displacement at different levels. Drawing together key thinkers in the field, this volume will be of great relevance to scholars, lawyers, legal advisors and policy-makers with an interest in climate change, environmental policy, disaster management and human rights law and policy.

Displacements in the Asia Pacific region are escalating. The region has for decades experienced more than half of the world’s natural disasters and, in recent years, a disproportionately high share of extreme weather-related disasters, which displaced 19 million people in 2013 alone. This volume offers an innovative and thought-provoking Asia-Pacific perspective on an intensifying global problem: the forced displacement of people from their land, homes, and livelihoods due to development, disasters and environmental change. This book draws together theoretical and multidisciplinary perspectives with diverse case studies from around the region – including China’s Three Gorges Reservoir, Japan’s Fukushima disaster, and the Pacific’s Banaba resettlement. Focusing on responses to displacement in the context of power asymmetries and questions of the public interest, the book highlights shared experiences of displacement, seeking new approaches and solutions that have potential global application. This book shows how displaced peoples respond to interlinked impacts that unravel their social fabric and productive bases, whether through sporadic protest, organised campaigns, empowered mobility or; even community-based negotiation of resettlement solutions. . The volume will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students in development studies, environmental and climate change studies, anthropology, sociology, human geography, international law and human rights.

This book explores various contemporary aspects of the growing field of housing, land and property (HLP) rights. HLP rights have undergone a major transformation in recent decades, but much remains to be done to bring their promise to the billions of people who have yet to access them. This work presents several innovative ways by which the entire field of HLP rights can be strengthened in support of those to whom they are promised by human rights laws. It outlines the author’s suggestions for creating a new World Restitution Agency, expanding our understanding of the term ‘internationally wrongful act’ to HLP crimes, the links between mine action and HLP rights in post-conflict societies and the need to include HLP issues in peace agreements. The book concludes with several chapters that outline suggestions for better addressing climate displacement, including the need for national climate land banks, the role of the courts and how to redistribute global wealth towards rehousing the millions set to be displaced from their homes and lands due to the effects of climate change. The volume will be essential reading for academics, researchers and policymakers working in the areas of international human rights law, housing, land and property issues, humanitarian issues and climate change.

Every year millions of people are displaced from their homes, livelihoods and communities due to land-based development projects. There is no limit to what can be called a ‘development project’. They can range from small-scale infrastructure or mining projects to mega hydropower plants; can be public or private, well-planned or rushed into. Knowledge of development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR) remains limited even after decades of experience and research. Many questions are yet unanswered: What is "success" in resettlement? Is development without displacement possible or can resettlement be developmental? Is there a global safeguard policy or do we need an international right ‘not to be displaced’? This book revisits what we think we know about DIDR. Starting with case studies that challenge some of the most widespread preconceptions, it goes on to discuss the ethical aspects of DIDR. The book assesses the current laws, policies and rights governing the sector, and provides a glimpse of how the displaced people defend themselves in the absence of effective governance and safeguard mechanisms. This book is a valuable resource for students and researchers in development studies, population and development, and migration and development.

Climate change, sometimes thought of as a problem for the future, is already impacting people’s lives around the world: families are losing their homes, lands and livelihoods as a result of sea level rise, increased frequency and intensity of storms, drought and other phenomena. Following several years of preparatory work across the globe, legal scholars, judges, UN officials and climate change experts from 11 countries came together to finalise a new normative framework aiming to strengthen the right of climate-displaced persons, households and communities. This resulted in the approval of the Peninsula Principles on Climate Displacement within States in August 2013. This book provides detailed explanations and interpretations of the Peninsula Principles and includes in-depth discussion of the legal, policy and programmatic efforts needed to uphold the standards and norms embedded in the Principles. The book provides policy-makers with the conceptual understanding necessary to ensure that national-level policies are in place to respond to the climate displacement challenge, as well as a firm sense of the programme-level approaches that can be taken to anticipate, reduce and manage climate displacement. It also provides students and policy advocates with the necessary information to debate and critique responses to climate displacement at different levels. Drawing together key thinkers in the field, this volume will be of great relevance to scholars, lawyers, legal advisors and policy-makers with an interest in climate change, environmental policy, disaster management and human rights law and policy.

Environmental migration is not new. Nevertheless, the events and processes accompanying global climate change threaten to increase human movement both within states and across international borders. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted an increased frequency and severity of climate events such as storms, cyclones and hurricanes, as well as longer-term sea level rise and desertification, which will impact upon people's ability to survive in certain parts of the world. This book brings together a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement. With chapters by leading scholars in their field, it collects in one place a rigorous, holistic analysis of the phenomenon, which can better inform academic understanding and policy development alike. Governments have not been prepared to take a leading role in developing responses to the issue, in large part due to the absence of strong theoretical frameworks from which sound policy can be constructed. The specialist expertise of the authors in this book means that each chapter identifies key issues that need to be considered in shaping domestic, regional and international responses, including the complex causes of movement, the conceptualisation of migration responses to climate change, the terminology that should be used to describe those who move, and attitudes to migration that may affect decisions to stay or leave. The book will help to facilitate the creation of principled, research-based responses, and establish climate-induced displacement as an important aspect of both the climate change and global migration debates.