Climate-Induced Displacement: Gaps in Protection, Security, and Response

Climate change is among the most important human rights issues of our time, and climate-induced displacement is one of its consequences affecting millions worldwide. Climate refugees and IDPs are not currently protected under international legal norms on forced displacement, thus falling into a legal void. No longer only an imminent threat, climate-induced displacement needs codification within legal frameworks and plans of action that address the nexus between migration, environment, and climate change by accounting for those in need of safe and regular migration pathways. This thesis is framed around an examination of climate change and its human causes, scholarship on climate and migration, international and regional legal frameworks on migration and displacement, and policy and operational recommendations for forward movement. The paper brings together a diverse selection of case studies drawn from least-developed countries (LDCs), which are known to be both the least culpable in causing climate change and least equipped to mitigate its effects. Those LDCs analyzed within are among the few that also face stark geographic disadvantages in being landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) or small island developing states (SIDS): the Sahelian states of Mali, Chad, and Niger, and the island states of Haiti, East Timor, and Solomon Islands