Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability

Not AvailableThe recent increase in the number of publications, debates and public discourse about the displacement of people caused by environmental changes can be reasonably attributed to the alarming intensity of the situation. In the near future, the proliferation of environmentally forced migrants (EM) is expected to create tremendous socio-economic and political problems. In spite of the immensity of the problem, no official definition of this class of migrants has been established and no policy measures are adopted at the national and international level1 . The absence of any real effort to define the status of environmental migrants is often linked to the deliberate effort not to include them in the class of (political) refugees and consequently grant them the protection provided by the Geneva Convention (Kibreab, 1997). Thus, the effort of the advocates of an ad hoc policy for the EM amounts to persuading the political community that those migrants should also be considered as persecuted (Myers, 1997, Conisbee and Simms,, 2003).This reasoning has found support in the prevailing political tendency to limit immigration flows. Another explanation given to this ‘agenda denial’ (Cobb and Ross, 1997) is related to the uncertainty of the phenomenon. All figures advanced on the displacement of millions of people cover periods as distant as 2025 or 2050 (Myers 2002). Many scholars remain sceptical and contest those numbers (Castles 2002, Black 2001). They emphasise the absence of certainty about these apocalyptic scenarios and ask for more analysis of the complex factors behind them. Governments hesitate to engage in policy action in a context of uncertain long-term impacts. In response to this situation, more case studies are requested in order to prove the necessity for further consideration. However, the advocates of the asylum regime and the uncertainty of the future are not the only reasons for the difficulties in this agenda-setting process. A further explanation of failure appears to be much more complex and largely related to the specificity of the issue which involves different policy sectors. Each one 1 In order not to create confusion with traditional refugees, I use the terms environmental (forced) migrant and environmentally displaced persons. ENVIRONMENT, FORCED MIGRATION AND SOCIAL VULNERABILITY Chapter 2 2 of these sectors has its own rationality and its policy goals and priorities. Therefore, a compromise on problem definition and policy content becomes particularly difficult2 . The first part of this contribution seeks to present the complex process of public problem definition. The second part proposes an analysis of the constraints imposed by the multi-sectoral aspect of the issue. The third part discusses the recent evolution of the international debate that restrictively defines the environmental migrant as a climate migrant. We suggest that this effort to define the identity of those who need protection paradoxically leads to postponement of any attempt to officially recognise environmentally displaced persons as an autonomous public problem and to propose specific policy measures. The final section breaks with the globalising and the restrictive definitional strategies outlined in the previous parts. It suggests a more pragmatic approach consisting of the use of present policy instruments in order to give different policy sectors the possibility to help environmentally vulnerable populations. This could be a first stage for further negotiations for a more integrated approach in the future.Not Availabl