Climate Change Displacement and Forced Migration: An International Crisis

Abstract

In late summer and early fall of 2015, news of the plight of thousands of mid-Eastern refugees fleeing to Europe filled the mainstream media. The world watched in horror as these media outlets made daily reports on the suffering of migrants, from stories of people suffocating in the back of smugglers’ trucks to the drowning of a three-year old child who had washed up on the shores of a Turkish beach. In the United States, news stories from the mainstream media have appeared about towns in Alaska that are facing imminent relocation efforts due to rising seas and melting tundra. It is all a part of a growing global phenomenon--shocking, costly, and deadly exoduses. In the past, we have heard stories of climate change and animal displacement. However, this time the stories are not solely about polar bears, fish, and birds struggling to survive as their habitats change or disappear. Humans are now being forced to relocate in an effort to cope with the effects of climate change. According to climate scientist Richard Seager, “[t]he current refugee crisis marks a watershed moment in the history of global warming because it is the first wave of emigration to be explicitly linked to climate change ....” Mass migration is going to become the new normal, and currently, there are few international or domestic laws in place that provide protection to climate change refugees. This paper critically examines how climate change migrants and the lack of coordinated international response threaten global security, how current international and domestic policies inadequately provide human rights protections to those refugees, and how international and domestic regulations can be written or amended to better safeguard the human rights of climate change migrants. Drawing on events from around the globe, including the United States, Africa, the Middle East, and small island nations in the South Pacific, this paper examines the multiple causes of human migration and the stresses it puts on a nation’s economic and political security. The paper discusses both the types and numbers of migrants as well as the terminology debate over what to call these migrants, which is one of the critical reasons why current international and domestic legal frameworks are inadequate in providing human rights protections to climate change-induced refugees. The paper concludes that the time is ripe for an international legal agreement addressing the concerns and needs of climate change- *458 induced migrants to be developed and adopted in order to provide a long-term human rights’ solution for climate change victims.