UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES - FINAL.pdf · ufrgs model united nations2010 1 UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES Dear delegates, You are about to start

ufrgsmodelunitednations2010 1

UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES

Dear delegates,

You are about to start the exciting experience of simulating the United Nations

High Comissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Our first mission in this Study Guide is to

introduce ourselves.

Anaís Medeiros Passos is a 6th semester student of International Relations at

Universidade Federaldo Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She is also a member of the

Strategy and International Relations Center (NERINT) at the same university. She took

part in the 6th and 7th edition of UFRGSMUN and this is her second experience as a

member of the academic staff. Her main area of interest is International Security and

International Politics.

Julien Delemeuster is a 5th semester student of International Relations at

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). He has participated as a delegate

in the 6th and 7th edition of UFRGSMUN and this is his first experience as a member of

the academic staff. Currently he is studying at China, therefore he will not be present

during the simulation.

Leticia Zevenich is a 5th semester student of Law at the Universidade Federal do

Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She took part in the 6th and 7th edition of UFRGSMUN and

this is also her first experience as a member of the academic staff. Currently she is

studying at France and also will not participate during the simulation days.

Helena Hoppen is a 5th semester student of International Relations at

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She has participated as a delegate

in the 6th and 7th edition of UFRGSMUN and this is her first experience as a member of

the academic staff.

Iara Binta Lima Machado is a 4th semester student of International Relations at

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She is also member of the

Strategy and International Relations Center (NERINT) at the same university. She has

participated of UFRGSMUN as a delegate once, in 2008, and this is her second time as a

member of the academic staff. Her main area of interest is Africa, most specifically South

Africa.


Finally, Gabriel Machado is a 6th semester student of International Relations at

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) He has participated as a delegate

in 7th edition of UFRGSMUN. Therefore, this is his first experience as a member of the

academic staff.

Now that you know who we are, we would like to wish you a great time while

studying for the committee and reading this Study Guide. Let us remind you that this

document need not be your only source of preparation. We strongly suggest you read as

many works as possible on the issues internally displaced people and climate refugees.

We will see each other soon!

Anaís Medeiros Passos

Director

Gabriel Machado Helena Hoppen Iara Binta Lima Machado Leticia Zevenich

Assistant-Director Assistant-Director Assistant-Director Assistant-Director


INTRODUCTION

The UNHCR

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was

established on December 14th 1950, by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution

n. 428(V), to guarantee the protection and assistance to victims of persecution, violence

and intolerance. Regardless the initial three-year mandate to deal with Europeans

displaced by the World War II, it has continued its works solving the problem of

refugees, aware that the humanitarian needs are unlikely to disappear. In 2003, the

General Assembly extended the organization's mandate "until the refugee problem is

solved" and this year, UNHCR will celebrate its 60th anniversary. The UNHCR is one of

the main humanitarian agencies worldwide and was awarded twice with the Nobel Peace

Prize, in 1954 and 1981, as recognition for its efforts. The fundamental basis of its work

is to ensure the respect and acknowledgment of basic human rights for refugees,

including the possibility of seeking asylum and the guarantee that no one will,

involuntarily, return to a country where there are reasons to believe one's life is

endangered. By its resolution 672 (XXV) of 1958, the ECOSOC established the UNHCR

Executive Committee, which came into existence as of January 1st 1959.

The UNHCR Executive Committee meets once every year to review and

approve UNHCR programs and its budget, to advise on international protection for

refugees and to discuss a wide range of other issues. It has 78 members. Due to its

subsidiary organ status, the ExCom does not have the power to approve resolutions.

General rules of procedure shall apply to UFRGSMUN’s UNHCR. In this sense,

the committee shall be simulated in the same way as any other General Assembly

committee; with the exception it shall not have the power to approve draft resolutions.

Final documents shall be submitted to the approval of the General Assembly for

consideration in the Third Committee.

This year, the delegates attending the annual meeting of the UNHCR Executive

Committee are invited to deal with and discuss protection of internally displaced people

and the impacts that climate change will have on human displacements.


TOPIC AREA A: INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE

By Anaís Passos, Cláudia Pfeifer, Helena Melchionna Julien Demeulemeester, Letícia

Zenevich.

1. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The outbreak and the maintenance of armed conflicts have had a negative impact

on peace, stability and security in many regions of the planet during world history, often

resulting in the movement of people inside and outside their home countries. During the

past few decades, the global juncture has caused the forced population displacement to

grow in size and complexity. Hitherto, the absence of a solution for millions of internally

displaced persons in protracted situations continues to pose a major challenge to the

United Nations High Commissioner Refugees and to other humanitarian agencies.

Although refugees have been a constant and accepted part of human

displacement for centuries, the development of the nation-state and fixed borders caused

countries to shun migration across State boundaries. Thus, this increasing difficulty to

cross international borders steered towards internal displacement – creating Internally

Displaced People (IDPs) – rather than international displacement – resulting in refugees.

At that time, groups of people facing religious or political persecution would often try

changing to a more tolerant religion or political sight in order to avoid discrimination,

since there was no international agency channeling protection to displaced people.

The largest people displacements of world history occurred during the twentieth

century, as a consequence of major political clashes and transitions. The Russian

Revolution of 1917 led approximately 1.5 million Russians who opposed to communism

to flee off their homes. In the Caucasus, more than one million Armenians fled their

homelands between 1915 and 1923 to escape persecution and massacre during the

Armenian Genocide (GIBNEY & HANSEN, 2005).

The first concerted international effort to assist displaced people was made

during World War I, when Herbert Hoover created a non-governmental organization

called Commission for Relief in Belgium1. By the end of the war, it had distributed five

1 The Commission for Relief in Belgium was an American organization, created by Herbert Hoover, to arrange the supply of food to German-occupied Belgium and northern France during World War I.


million tons of food and the equivalent to one billion dollars in aid to refugees and

internally displaced persons of German-occupied Belgium and northern France

(LAUREN, 2003).

By the time, refugees and IDPs were immediately perceived not just as people

displaced, but as people lacking protection and, explicitly, without the support of their

own State. The League of Nations sought to fill this gap when it created, in 1921, the

High Commission for Refugees to assist refugees and IDPs who were deprived of their

habitual rights due to the social and political instabilities of the time. The establishment

of this organization was the “first recognition that the international community has

responsibility for protecting those forced to flee their homelands because of repression or

war” (MINGST & KARNS, 2007, p. 168). The main activities of the agency included

assisting displaced people from the Russian Revolution, from World War I and protecting

other groups, such as Armenians, Assyrians, Assyro-Chaldeans, and Turks.

Fridtjof Nansen served the League of Nations as a delegate from Norway to the

High Commission for Refugees. One of Nansen’s most important innovations was a

document that specified which individuals were refugees; this became known as the

Nansen Passport, which was accepted by more than 50 countries and was a precursor to

many important documents regarding refugees and IDPs. For his work, Nansen received

the Nobel Peace Prize. After Nansen’s death in 1930, the League replaced the High

Commission with the Nansen International Office for Refugees (NOBEL

FOUNDATION, 2010).

During the Great Depression and the run-up to World War II, States became less

willing to help refugees and IDPs. This was partly the result of economic crisis and partly

the result of a desire in not to interfere in the affairs of other States.

For instance, although it was clear as early as 1933 that Jews and other

minorities were being persecuted by Gestapo – the official Nazi police –, the German

government protested against the accusations of breaking human rights; however, the

international community and the League of Nations took no action (GIBNEY &

HANSEN, 2005). As the Dutch foreign minister explained:

We have no wish to examine the reasons why these people have left their country; but we are faced with the fact that thousands of German subjects have crossed the frontiers of neighboring countries and refused to return to their homes for reasons which we are not called upon to judge (HADDAD, 2008, p. 109).


In 1939, the Nansen Office was replaced by the Office of the High

Commissioner for Refugees, under the protection of the League. Due to the outbreak of

World War II – which divided and incapacitated the League of Nations –, the new office

never complied with its objectives. Instead, each side dealt separately with refugees and

internally displaced people, both of whom were more numerous than ever before, due to

the worldwide scope of the conflict and to the war technological developments.

During the war, 65 to 75 million people died, about half of whom were civilians,

and million others were displaced due to persecution or to the imminent danger suffered

by the population (LEITENBERG, 2006). The first population movements were those of

the Jews and others fleeing off their homelands in Germany. Then, as Germany, Italy and

Japan began to expand, Poles, Danes, Ethiopians, French, Chinese and many others were

displaced from their habitual homes2. At the end of the war, the population movement

reversed. According to the researcher Joseph V. O’Brien, in the immediate post-war

period, millions of ethnic Germans that lived abroad were expelled from their homes,

many of whom died in displaced-persons camps (O’BRIEN, 2007).

As soon as the war ended, in 1945, the United Nations organization officially

came into existence and its General Assembly created the International Refugees

Organization3 (IRO). In 1950, the General Assembly replaced the IRO with the UN High

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). At that time – five years after World War II

ended –, there were still more than one million refugees and IDPs from the war

(LAUREN, 2003). The UNHCR remains until today the UN agency charged for

overseeing programs related to displaced persons and over the past 60 years, it has helped

more than 100 million people in finding durable solutions to their situations (UNHCR,

2009).

Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, around

two million Chinese fled off their homes to find shelter in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The

world’s largest population movement in history occurred in 1947 when 18 million Hindus

from Pakistan and Muslims from India were displaced from their homelands in the newly

created countries of Pakistan and India. Besides, approximately 3.7 million Germans fled

2 In China alone, 60 million people were homeless. 3 International organization founded on April of 1946 to deal with the massive refugee problem created by World War II.


from East Germany to West Germany between 1945 and 1961, when the Berlin Wall was

constructed.

After World War II, civil wars and conflicts caused by the bipolarity of the Cold

War regime were responsible for the vast majority of internal displacements of people. It

is remarkable that during the first fifty years of the 20th century, most of the people

displacements were hosted in Europe, Russia and China, whereas during the last fifty

years of that century, the displacements steered towards Africa, South Asia and Latin

America. Throughout the Cold War period, the majority of internal displacements of

people happened in Sudan, Guinea-Bissau, Indochina (Vietnam and Laos), Ethiopia,

Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Iraq (UNHCR, 1994).

In 1972, the civil war in Sudan forced 180,000 refugees to flee off their

homelands and internally displaced another 500,000 persons within the country. In 1974,

a local government was established in Guinea-Bissau and it requested assistance to the

UNHCR to stabilize the situation in the country; one of the main goals of the request was

the aid to internally displaced persons. There are no official figures, but UN agencies

estimate that there were at least 100,000 IDPs in the country, 30,000 of whom were

beneficiaries of the UNHCR activities (UNHCR, 1994).

The 1975 war in Southeast Asia, especially in Indochina (Vietnam and Laos),

displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians. In Laos alone, 700,000 were estimated to

be uprooted – either internally or externally displaced. During the late 1970s and early

1980s, Ethiopia was facing severe internal conflicts. In 1979, the Ethiopian government

requested assistance to the UNHCR due to the IDPs, estimating that some 500,000

persons were homeless in the Ogaden region; by March of 1980, the figure had risen to

750,000. Following the Ethiopian government’s initial appeal, the High Commissioner

delivered aid to 150,000 of the neediest internally displaced persons (UNHCR, 1994).

In the late 1970s, civil war uprooted around 660,000 persons in Zimbabwe. In

1980, the High Commissioner was asked by the United Nations Secretary-General Kurt

Waldheim and by the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe to coordinate aid programs for

410,000 internally displaced persons (UNHCR, 1994). The rehabilitation program

included the provision of agricultural equipment and training, shelter, food, water and

education. Similar episodes happened in Uganda and Chad.


Following the peace treaty between India and Sri Lanka, the former requested

assistance to the reception of the returning refugees who were expected to be repatriated

from India and to aid the hundreds of thousands of IDPs who were spread all over the

country. This episode is one of the most successful UNHCR operations regarding

refugees and IDPs, due to the joint effort of the local government and UN agencies. By

1990, some 800,000 IDPs and 50,000 returnees were receiving assistance (UNHCR,

1994). The operation provided the rebuilding of schools and housing, the construction of

small-scale irrigation systems, a fishery and crop training, and the granting of temporary

shelter.

Additionally to the above mentioned cases, the Cold War period also entailed a

series of other small conflicts and localized quarrels that caused the upward of internally

displaced people in different regions of the world, where UNHCR was asked support.

The High Commissioner also delivered assistance to IDPs in Cyprus (1974), Uganda

(1979), Chad (1981), Lebanon (1982), Nicaragua (1987 and 1989), El Salvador

(1989), Guatemala (1989) and Honduras (1989), among others (UNHCR, 1994).

The end of the Cold War led to the dissolution of countries, outbreak of local

conflicts and changes in politics that caused unbridling persecution and a huge increase in

the number of refugees and internally displaced persons around the world, most of which

last until today. Soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the aftermath of Iraq’s defeat by

coalition forces in the Iran-Iraq War, at least one million persons were uprooted –

500,000 of whom still remain internally displaced. A similar episode happened in

Yugoslavia, when the breakup of the country in various new States led to internal

tensions and to the rise of IDPs. Many countries today still have a large number of IDPs,

such as Sudan, Colombia, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, Democratic Republic of Congo,

Somalia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Azerbaijan, among others.

2. STATEMENT OF THE ISSUE

2.1 Definition of Internally Displaced People

There is no legal definition for Internally Displaced Persons as, for instance,

there is for refugees. Under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of


Refugees from 1951, a refugee is as a person who has left his or her home country due to

fear of persecution and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection

of that country (UN, 1951). According to a United Nations report entitled The Guiding

Principles on Internally Displacement4 (UN, 1998), Internally Displaced Persons have

left their homes for similar reasons, but have not crossed an international border. The

definition is a descriptive concept rather than a legal one. The report defines IDPs as:

Persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, the situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border (OCHA, 2004).

Involuntary departure and, namely, the fact that the individual remains within his

or her country are the two core defining elements of an internally displaced person. The

first element distinguishes IDPs from persons who left their homes but could have

otherwise safely remained where they previously lived. The second key element

differentiates IDPs from refugees. Both the categories of displaced persons often face

similar deprivations; however IDPs remain within their country of habitual residence,

whereas refugees do not.

2.2 Protection of IDPs

Protection involves ensuring that all persons enjoy their rights on equal basis,

with safety and dignity. All persons have the equal right to protection and so do internally

displaced persons. People in this situation face various barriers which may threaten their

safety. After fleeing the effects of armed conflicts or human rights violations, IDPs are

often unsuccessful in finding security and safety in the place of displacement and still

face attacks and violence, usually specifically targeted to their settlements. In Darfur,

Sudan, IDPs camps are reported to be awash with arms and rebel fighters, making the

camps more susceptible to attack (COHEN & DENG, 2009).

It is import to acknowledge that displacement can affect individuals in different

ways. Specific groups of persons, such as women, children, elderlies and minorities

4 The Guiding Principles on Internally Displacement is available at http://www.reliefweb.int/ocha_ol/ pub/idp_gp/idp.html Last access: August 31, 2010.


usually suffer marginalization in the communities and are less represented in formal

decision making structures. This lack of representation results in disregard of the specific

risks that they face.

To quote from Article 1 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms

of Discrimination Against Women,

no distinction, exclusion or restriction is to be made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, social, cultural, civil or any other field.

Regarding child’s protection, according to the United Nations Convention on the

Rights of the Child of 1989, three principles must be respected: non-discrimination,

participation, and the child’s “best interests”. Article 3 of the above cited Convention

provides that “in all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private

social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies,

the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.” This principle ought to be

applied to decisions affecting directly and indirectly individual and groups of children.

In several countries, displaced children were particularly at risk of abduction and

forced recruitment into armed groups while displaced women were exposed to risks of

sexual and gender-based violence and abuses. Ignoring these discrimination and the

particular risks faced by some members of the community may increase these risks and

reinforce the discrimination and exclusion.

As a matter of international law, it should be the duty of the government

concerned to provide assistance and protection to internally displaced persons within their

territorial State, in virtue of its sovereignty and the principle of non-intervention. Yet, as

many of the displacements are a result of civil conflicts or quarrels where the authority of

central states is in dispute, it is sometimes the very government, the one which should be

responsible for protecting and assisting its internally displaced population, that is unable

or even unwilling to do so. Sometimes governments may even be directly involved in

forcibly uprooting their own civilians (GPCWG, 2007).

At this point, the prevailing premises of sovereignty and non-intervention stand

potentially against other principles of the international law, such as the commitment to

human rights and to international cooperation in the unraveling of humanitarian


problems. This approach works towards the possibility of an international organization to

involve itself in the situation and help the civilians at risk (GOODWIN-GILL, 2006).

Even though sometimes national governments are unable or unwilling to protect

and assist their internally displaced populations, the role of international actors is to

reinforce, and not replace, national responsibility. International actors should support the

development of national and local capacities to fulfill these responsibilities. However, in

several countries, national authorities chose not to cooperate with international assistance

to fulfill their responsibility towards IDPs, openly rejecting any help, imposing serious

bureaucratic obstacles, and harassing humanitarian workers.

As IDPs do not cross international borders, they do not have a well-established

system of international protection. Unlike the case of refugees, there is no international

organization which has the overall responsibility of protecting and assisting internally

displaced persons, despite the fact that they are increasingly at the forefront of the

humanitarian agenda. In view of this situation, a number of organizations usually step

into the breach and help in their specific areas. In 2005, the Principals of the UN Inter-

Agency Standing Committee assigned responsibility for the protection of IDPs to a

cluster of UN agencies – Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health

Organization (WHO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations

Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP), and the UNCHR - and

international organizations – International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Save the

Children, and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies - to be

chaired by UNHCR. The cluster approach aimed at fulfilling significant capacity gaps in

the provision of basic rights of the displaced persons in shelters and camps, such as the

right to safety, education and food.

2.3 Population

Since the Cold War, the number of people uprooted by conflict, ethnic rivalry

and human rights violations has soared. Sometimes natural borders such as mountains or

rivers impede flight to other countries. In addition, some countries refuse to admit

refugees based on the costs and destabilization they cause, thus elevating even more the

population of internal displaced.


The United Nations-led humanitarian reform process initiated in 2005, which

focuses on the cluster-approach, entails a view to reinforce leadership and coordination

and has provided over the last few years a considerable institutional improvement in the

response to the needs of IDPs. Meanwhile, an increasing number of states have developed

or are developing legal instruments based on the Guiding Principles on Internal

Displacement. Nonetheless, new internal displacement continues to occur and a relevant

number of IDPs are in a situation in which the possibility to return to their places of

origin seems quite distant.

It is very difficult to raise accurate figures for Internally Displaced Persons due

to the lack of a unified definition of the term and to the fact that these populations are

constantly fluctuating: some IDPs may be returning to their homes while others may be

fleeing. Moreover, if on the one hand IDP cases in large camps such as those in Darfur

Sudan, are relatively well-reported, on the other hand, it is very hard to assess those IDPs

who find shelter in large cities or in other people’s houses.

Since 2001, the global number of IDPs has remained almost untouched,

hovering around the 25 million mark. Neither the increase of international attention nor

State pledges to protect civilians from forced displacement has resulted in a substantial

reduction of its population. The UNHCR estimates that there are around 27 million IDPs

worldwide. Of this number, more than 16 million receive protection and assistance from

the organization5. UNHCR’s involvement with IDPs dates back to the engagement in

Sudan in 1972 and has grown to the extent that IDPs of concern to the organization

outnumber refugees and asylum-seekers (UNHCR, 2010).

In 2009, about 6.8 million people were forced to leave their homes as a result of

new outbreaks of conflict and violence in 23 of the 52 countries monitored. Nearly half of

them were in Pakistan, where some three million people fled offensives against the

Taliban and other armed groups by the Pakistan army. Other countries with large

numbers of people newly displaced in 2009 were the Democratic Republic of Congo (one

million), Sudan (530,000), Somalia (400,000), the Philippines (400,000), Colombia

(290,000), Sri Lanka (280,000) and Ethiopia (200,000). Together, these eight countries

accounted for 90 per cent of all new displacement. (IDMC, 2010)

5 The number of protected IDPs is the highest figure on record.


Far more people were newly displaced than in 2008 (4.6 million people) and

2007 (3.7 million people). New displacement was predominantly caused by conflicts

which had already run for years or decades. Many people had been repeatedly displaced

in successive cycles of conflict. However the number of people who reportedly returned

during the year was also higher, at around five million compared to 2.6 million in 2008

and 2.7 million in 2007. Most of newly displaced people during the year were able to

return after a few weeks or months of displacement. In Pakistan, around two thirds of the

people displaced during the year had returned to home areas at the end of 2009; in the

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) half of the people newly displaced returned before

the end of the year (IDMC, 2010).

In 2009, the number of IDPs in Africa was the lowest recorded in this decade, at

11.6 million. The increases due new displacements in DRC, Sudan and Somalia were

offset by decreases elsewhere, in particular in Uganda where an ongoing gradual return

process continued. In Africa, Europe and Central Asia, the estimated number of IDPs did

not change significantly. South and South-East Asia and the Americas accounted for most

of the increase, with their respective totals 800,000 and 500,000 higher. These increases

mirrored the year-on-year growth in the internally displaced populations of Pakistan and

Colombia. In the Middle East, IDP figures increased because of conflicts in Yemen and

in Gaza in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), while in other countries the number

fell (IDMC, 2010).

According to a recent UNHCR report, Sudan has the largest number of IDPs in

the world, with an estimated population outnumbering 4 million internally displaced

persons. Sudan is closely followed by Colombia, Iraq and DRC. Together, they host

about half of the world’s IDPs and have more than 350 million dollars designated to aid

them, sponsored by the UN. Besides them, other countries also have enormous IDP

populations, such as Pakistan, Somalia, Uganda, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Côte d’Ivoire

(UNHCR, 2010).

2.4. Displacement by region


With 45 per cent of all IDPs, Africa still is the continent which hosts its larger

population. However, compared to the continent’s total population, the ratio of IDPs has

fallen.

An upsurge in inter-ethnic violence in Southern Sudan caused a significant

deterioration in security in 2009, raising concerns over the risk of escalation of conflict in

the progress of the election of 2010 and the referendum on self determination of the south

due in 2011. More people were displaced in Southern Sudan than in Darfur in 2009. The

lack of humanitarian access to displaced communities was also an issue in the country

during the year. Following the March 2009 indictment by the International Criminal

Court of President al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, 13

international NGOs were expelled from northern Sudan and three Sudanese humanitarian

organizations were disbanded (IDMC, 2010).

In eastern DRC, intense fighting between various armed groups and government

forces have caused massive new displacement and violence against IDPs. Attacks against

the civilian population by various militia groups and by government troops caused large-

scale displacement and intense suffering for hundreds of thousands of people. At the end

of the year about 1.9 million people were internally displaced in DRC (IDMC, 2010).

In Somalia, the establishment of a coalition government in January 2009

between the Transnational Federal Government and moderate Islamic groups led to the

withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Mogadishu. However, government forces continued

to fight remaining armed groups while conflict between different insurgent factions

across south-central Somalia led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.

By the end of the year the estimated number of people internally displaced had risen to

1.5 million (IDMC, 2010).

In Ethiopia, fighting between the Oromo and Somalia clans over disputed

administrative boundaries and other resources displaced about 160,000 people in

February 2009 alone, while in Gambella Region, inter-clan fighting displaced hundreds

of thousands (UNHCR, 2010).

In the Americas, the situation in Colombia is still worrisome, considering that

the country has the second-largest displaced population in the world, mainly due to the

ongoing armed conflict between government forces and the leading rebel group, the

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); between the FARC and a smaller


rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN); and between these groups and the new

post-demobilization armed groups. People in rural areas were not only displaced by

fighting, but also by land seizures by all illegal armed groups perpetrated as a way to

control territory and also grow coca (IDMC, 2010).

Despite increased efforts in the national and international response to the

displacement crisis, IDPs in Colombia continue to face protection problems, mostly

related to infrastructure deficiency and violence. The marginalization of internally

displaced Afro-Colombian and indigenous people reflected the structural discrimination

in the country. Only 60 per cent of displaced Afro-Colombians had access in 2009 to the

public health system, compared to 75 per cent of other IDPs (IDMC, 2010).

New displacement was also reported in Mexico and Guatemala in 2009 as a

result of actions of drug cartels and gang-induced violence. In Mexico it was reported that

thousands of people had fled Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua State to escape wide-spread

violence caused by drug gangs (UNHCR, 2010).

In Guatemala, where the civil war ended a decade ago, the end of violence left

many thousands of people internally displaced, most of them from indigenous

communities or marginalized rural groups. These populations became increasingly

invisible as they returned, settled in new locations or blended with impoverished non-

displaced groups (UNHCR, 2010).

In the Middle East, where most of IDPs are in this situation for decades, the

population of internal displaced is continually increasing. Most of it has been displaced

by armed conflicts in Yemen and Iraq.

In Yemen, conflict between the army and al-Houthi rebelsin Sa’ada Governorate

flared up again in August 2009 in the sixth round of conflict since 2004, with the number

of people displaced growing through the year. By the end of the year an estimated

175,000 people were displaced in Sa’ada and neighboring governorates as the fighting

continued to intensify (IDMC, 2010).

Approximately 15 per cent of the Iraqi population was displaced inside and

outside the country since the 2003 US-led invasion. At the end of 2009, around 2.8

million people were believed to be internally displaced. Since 2006, around 1.5 million

people had fled sectarian and generalized violence including military operations by

multinational, Iraqi, Turkish and Iranian forces in northern Iraqi. In 2009, security


measures, including checkpoints, curfews and security barriers continued to restrict the

movement of people, including IDPs (IDMC, 2010).

In Gaza in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), 2009 was one of the most

violent years since the Israeli occupation began in 1967. The Israeli offensive in Gaza

launched in December 2008 displaced more than 100,000 people, and the implementation

of policies of house demolition and revocation of residents’ permits in East Jerusalem

displaced hundreds more. Reconstruction was hampered by the continuing Israeli

blockade which prevented construction materials from entering Gaza. Palestinian

displaced population faces a deep protection crisis. Violence, restrictions on their

movement and discriminatory policies and regulations have increased their vulnerability,

while the humanitarian situation has worsened in Gaza as a result of its isolation since

2007 takeover by Hamas and the 2008-2009 offensives. In addition, Palestinian internal

displacement is generally not recognized by the government of Israel, since the country

doesn’t recognize the Palestinian state itself (UNHCR, 2010).

In South and South-East Asia, the displacements are particularly significant in

Pakistan and in the Philippines. The majority of the IDPs in this region returned home

after a relatively short period of displacement.

By far, the largest displacement in the region in 2009 was in Pakistan, where

three million people were forced to flee their homes owing to government forces’

operations against Pakistani Taliban militants in the north-western provinces bordering

Afghanistan. Offensives against the Taliban and other Islamist groups by the Pakistan

army in North West Frontier Province and subsequently in the Federally Administrated

Tribal Areas forced some three million people to flee in 2009. At the end of the year over

1.2 million people were still displaced (IDMC, 2010).

Conflict and displacement in Philippines have been ongoing for at least 30 years.

Most recently, in August 2008, renewed fighting between the government and the rebels

of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the southern region of Mindanao led to

internal displacement of an estimated one million people, before the parties declared a

ceasefire in July 2009. Before this latest surge in fighting, it was estimated that more than

two million people across the country had been displaced due to conflict since 2000

(IDMC, 2010).


In 2009, internal displacement in Afghanistan increased following the

intensification of conflict between armed opposition groups and pro-government forces in

the south, south-east and east of the country. Some civilians who had been forced to flee

were able to return after fighting around their home areas had ended, but many people in

2009 had been displaced for several years (IDMC, 2010).

In Sri Lanka, the long-running armed conflict between government forces and

those of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist organization, ended in

May 2009. Between October 2008 and June 2009, more than 280,000 people were

displaced to government-controlled territory. The government held IDPs in close camps

until at least October, reporting that it needed to demine IDPs’ area of origin and screen

displaced civilians to identify LTTE combatants. In December, releases were accelerated

in the run-up to presidential elections, which were held in January 2010 (IDMC,

2010).The situation in Europe and Central Asia has changed little in the last few years

and the internal displaced population remains around 2.5 million, more than 40 per cent

of whom are in Turkey. A small number of it managed to achieve durable solutions to

end their situation of prolonged displacement (UNHCR, 2010).

Displacement in Turkey is the result of armed clashes, generalized violence and

human rights violations. Around a million people were displaced from towns and villages

in south-eastern Turkey during the 1980s and 1990s as a result of the insurgent actions of

the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the counter-insurgency policies of the Turkish

government. Over 60 per cent of these IDPs were forced from their homes between 1991

and 1996. Although security in the south-east has greatly improved since the 1990s,

clashes between government forces and the PKK have increased since 2004, when the

PKK announced the end of a five-year ceasefire, discouraging returns and even

threatening new displacement (UNHCR, 2010).

The generalized violence and armed conflict between Yugoslav, Croatian and

Bosnian armed forces and militias, accompanied by massive human rights violations, led

to the displacement of over a million people and the creation of ethnically homogeneous

areas within the newly independent Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the end of 2009, some

580,000 people had returned to their places of origin, and the government reported that

some 114,000 people remained displaced (IDMC, 2010).


People in Georgia have been displaced by several waves of conflict. Fighting

which erupted in the early 1990s in South Ossetia was soon followed by the conflict in

Abkhazia. At the end of 2009, at least 220,000 people were displaced in Georgia proper.

Around 45,000 people displaced in the 1990s, which Georgia still counted as IDPs, had

over the years returned to Gali district in Abkhazia (UNHCR, 2010).

Governments still largely prioritized the return of IDPs to their places of origin.

However, return remained impossible for most IDPs in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Cyprus

in the absence of peace agreements. Obstacles to return in other countries included

insecurity, ethnic discrimination, limited government support, infrastructure and social

services in areas of origin, as well as problems repossessing and repairing property,

earning an income, cultivating land, receiving a full pension and obtaining

documentation.

2.5. Jurisdiction

As citizens of their country, IDPs have the right to full and equal protection

under the State’s national law, which should be compatible with the State’s obligations

under international law. The challenge that international agencies, NGOs and States have

faced is to identify the rights and guarantees under international law that respond to the

particular needs and protection risks that arise during displacement.

Since the release of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, the

international community and in particular the United Nations Representative of the

Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons have worked to provide national

authorities with the necessary guidance to fulfill their responsibility towards IDPs. This

document remains as the most important over IDPs. Introduced into the UN Commission

on Human Rights in 1998, the Guiding Principles set forth the rights of internally

displaced persons and the obligations of governments and the international community

towards these populations, tailoring the full range of civil, political, economic, social and

cultural rights according to their specific needs. Although the Guiding Principles on

Internal Displacement are not considered as a binding international convention, they are

based upon and reflect biding international human rights and humanitarian law. It gleans

the main rules of international law and refugee law, which are relevant for the protection


in internal displacement and establish the responsibilities of States and other authorities

towards internally displaced people. They address all phases of displacement, providing

protection against arbitrary displacement, offering a basis for protection and assistance

during displacement, and setting forth guarantees for safe return, local integration and

settlement elsewhere in the country. The States recognize this document as “an important

international framework for the protection of internally displaced persons”, as well as a

“tool” and “standard” to guide governments and others international actors in situations

of internal displacement6.

One of the most significant contributions of the Guiding Principles is the

statement that primary responsibility to protect and to assist displaced populations should

rest with national authorities; however, if governments lack this capacity or are unwilling

to do so, the principles stress that the international community has the obligation to

become involved. Thus, according to the document, sovereignty over uprooted

populations should be transferred to foreign legal bodies when governments do not have

the capacity or willingness to abide their responsibilities (COHEN, 2004).

There are still some key instruments, such as the International Covenant on Civil

and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and

Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which cover a range of risks that IDPs often face and

reinforce protection for specific groups particularly affected by displacement. The

International Humanitarian Law is as well a significant protection mechanism,

considering that internal displacement often occurs in situation of armed conflict. In most

of the cases, the displacement could be avoided if the obligations imposed by

International Law were respected.

Governments are responsible for securing durable solutions for IDPs on their

territory. Most provide support to durable solutions through legislation, policies and

programmes. In the majority of cases, national policies developed to address internal

displacement do indeed focus on durable solutions, and particularly on return:

governments in 32 countries actively supported return, compared with only ten that

supported resettlement and eight that supported local integration. All three durable

6 United Nations General Assembly, 2005 World Summit Outcome resolution adopted by Heads of State, UN doc. A/RES/60/1, 15 September 2005, parag. 132.


solutions were overwhelming achieved by IDPs acting independently, with little ot no

direct involvement of national authorities or the international community (ICRC, 2010).

However, return is not in itself a durable solution. In a few countries, including

Colombia, the Russian Federation and Sudan, national authorities actively push IDPs to

return, often against the will of the displaced, although conditions in the places of origin,

including the security situation, are not suitable for sustainable return

(ESCHENBÄCHER, 2005).

Even where the political and security situation permit the displaced to return,

there are frequently lasting barriers to sustainable recovery. Ignoring the need to find

durable solutions for IDPs can negatively affect development since their continued

marginalization may hinder economic and social progress, both if they remain in hosts

areas or if they are able to return home. The lack of durable solutions can even become a

factor contributing to a relapse into conflict stocked by actors capitalizing on frustrations

among the displaced or the host populations in areas of exile or return.

Even though considerable achievements have been made in the last ten years in

the implementation of national laws and policies, it is noticeable the need to a more

effective international system to assist and protect IDPs. Major challenges to the

realization of rights of IDPs remain. The number of IDPs continues to increase, primarily

as a result of the growth in disaster-induced displacement, but also because of protracted

situations of displacement. Protracted displacement usually occurs as a result of

unresolved conflicts and lack of political will amongst national governments, as well as

insufficient support by international actors. In many countries, significant gaps between

policies and practices are observed, especially in relation to durable solutions. Moreover,

most states affected by internal displacement still do not have domestic laws or policies

on IDPs and many IDPs are still unaware of their rights.

A majority of states affected by internal displacement remain unable or

unwilling to take on their responsibilities for protecting IDPs. In some cases, the

humanitarian space required to prevent displacement or to provide protection to IDPs is

limited as a result of obstruction by governments or non-state actors. Concepts of

“sovereignty as responsibility” and the “responsibility to protect” – which acknowledge

that states have the primary responsibility to provide IDPs with life-supporting protection

and assistance and, if they are unable to do so, they are expected to request and accept


outside offers of aid – remain far ahead of international willingness and capacity to

enforce them. These concepts have been of limited value in the protection of human

rights of IDPs, as a number of states remain more committed to the doctrine of national

sovereignty when it comes to dealing with internal displacement.

In addition, many misunderstandings have arisen about the meaning of these

concepts. States in the Group of 77, for example, have expressed the fear that the

“responsibility to protect” could facilitate military intervention in their internal affairs by

the powerful states of the global north. The failure of states to protect their citizens has

too often met with a weak international response (COHEN AND DENG, 2009).

There is an urgent need for humanitarian and development actors, governments

and financial institutions to work together to ensure durable solutions to displacement.

Join approaches are also required to address the challenges resulting from the increasing

scale and complexity of forced displacement and to ensure that the standards set by the

Guiding Principles are met.

While refugees are entitled to seek international protection under the 1951

Refugee Convention and its 1957 Protocol, the international community is not under the

same legal obligation to protect IDPs. Internal displaced populations may flight for the

same reasons as refugees, but they receive markedly less international protection.

Ultimately, only political solutions to the underlining causes of the conflict causing

displacement will ease the IDP crisis and reduce its population.

3. PREVIOUS INTERNATIONAL ACTION

The debate over universal standards to address the plight of internally displaced

persons was incorporated into the international agenda in the post Cold War period, when

the number of persons uprooted within their own countries began to soar. While refugees

have been entitled to seek international protection under the Refugee Convention since

1951, the internally displaced were neither under the legal protection of international

instruments nor under the mandate of international organizations that could automatically

assist them. It was only in the late 1990s that an international document was adopted to

fill in this major gap and gray area in the legal system.


One of the most vivid examples of this recent institutional development was the

creation of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement in 1998. Although not a

legally binding instrument and regardless that they were not drafted or formally approved

by an intergovernmental procedure, the Guiding Principles quickly gained substantial

international acceptance and authority. From the time they were introduced into the UN

Commission on Human Rights, international organizations, regional bodies,

nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and a growing number of governments have

begun to cite and to apply them as a basis for policies and laws regarding IDPs.

Accordingly, regional organizations and national governments of African, American, and

European countries are increasingly engaged in addressing human rights issues recalling

the principles. However, most of Asian countries are still skeptical about the principles,

evoking sovereignty values.

In Europe, the fifty-five member Organization for Security and Cooperation in

Europe (OSCE) acknowledged the principles as a useful framework for the work of the

OSCE in dealing with internal displacement, which should affect its policies toward the

Russian Federation and Turkey, among others. In 2003, the Parliamentary Assembly of

the Council of Europe urged its member states to incorporate the principles into their

domestic laws (COHEN, 2006).

In September 2008, eleven African countries adopted the first binding

multilateral instrument in the world focused on the issue of internal displacement, the

Protocol on the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons, signed in

20067. The objectives of the Great Lakes IDP Protocol are threefold: (i) to establish a

legal framework for the adoption of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and

a legal basis for their implementation in national law; (ii) to ensure legal protection of the

physical and material needs of IDPs and (iii) to reinforce member states’ commitment to

prevent and eliminate the root causes of displacement. Thus, the so called Pact on

Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes Region provides states-parties

with a comprehensive policy framework for their national response to internal

displacement, whose eleven signatories are Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic,

7 The Protocol on the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons is available at http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004BE3B1/(httpInfoFiles)/29D2872A54561F66C12572 FB002BC89A/$file/Final%20protocol%20Protection%20IDPs%20-%20En.pdf. Last access: August 31, 2010.


Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania,

Uganda, and Zambia (COHEN & DENG, 2009).

The example shown by the Great Lakes IDP Protocol and the notion that it was

not yet enough to address the displacement issue in the continent as a whole, drove 17

African countries to sign the African Union Convention on IDPs – also known as the

Kampala Convention–, contributing to build a stronger legal framework on the plight of

internal displacement. The Kampala Convention resulted from a complex three-year

drafting process that involved national governments, non-governmental organizations and

experts, including some from UN agencies and departments. It represents the single most

ambitious initiative to deal with IDPs, filling the gap in the international humanitarian

law for Africa’s displaced populations. However, even before the ink dried on the

convention, many countries were already pointing to the numerous challenges the treaty

will probably face. The most considerable one is the challenge of ratification; it is very

unlikely that we will see all the 53 African countries ratifying the convention – by March

2010, only Uganda has ratified the treaty. Several governments, such as Algeria and

Zimbabwe, barely recognize the gravity of the internal displacement situation and are

unwilling to let international actors to engage in their domestic affairs. Sudan, specially,

along Ethiopia, imposed many restrictions on international NGOs activities in the country

(IDMC, 2010).

Recently the impact of the principles has also begun to be felt at the national

level, where a small but increasing number of governments are anchoring national

policies based on them and incorporating their provisions into national law, therefore

making them binding at the domestic level. In 2001 the government of Angola integrated

the Guiding Principles into its law concerning the resettlement of the internally displaced

returnees after the civil war; in 2004 the Peruvian Congress adopted a law based on the

principles that provides material benefits to IDPs. Similarly, in Colombia the government

announced more aid to IDPs in response to a Constitutional Court decision based on the

Guiding Principles, while the government of Georgia brought its laws on voting rights

into line with them. Nevertheless, on the other hand, several countries are questioning the

legitimacy of the Guiding Principles, alleging that they were not drafted or formally

approved by an intergovernmental process (COHEN; DENG, 2009).


Even though considerable achievements have been made in the implementation

of laws and policies regarding IDPs, it is noticeable that the international community

needs a more effective legal system to assist and protect these populations. Such steps at

the regional and international levels are promising, but it will take some time before they

translate into concrete actions on the ground that will actually improve conditions for

IDPs. While the Guiding Principles have been well received at the rhetorical level, their

implementation remains problematic, and often rudimentary. However, the authority of

the principles will continue to increase over time and, with its sustained usage and

acceptance, a growing number of national and regional bodies will incorporate them as

part of their domestic law system. Some even argue that that if a sufficient number of

countries make them part of their national legislation and international legal bodies

regularly cite them as a source of law, the nonbinding elements of the principles might

evolve in time into a legally binding instrument. Therefore, over time and with continued

usage, the Guiding Principles and its internalization are bound to make a difference in the

lives of displaced people throughout the world.

4. BLOC POSITIONS

Significant progress has been made in Western Europe towards a more

effective assessment of IDPs in the last decade. In 2006, the Committee of Ministers of

the Council of Europe agreed on 13 recommendations on IDPs (Recommendation Rec,

2006). These Recommendations not only restate the non-binding Guiding Principles, but

also underline the binding obligations undertaken by the members of Council. These

obligations regard taking in account a special treatment to minorities, national

commitment to prevent major displacements, primary national responsibility in protecting

IDPs, and several other rules of procedure regarding the treatment of IDPs and their

human rights during its displacement and re-accommodation.

In 2009, the European Committee for Migration, Refugees and Population

adopted a report and a resolution on protracted internal displacement in Europe, calling

for a renewed and improved response to internal displacement.

The Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern about continued

displacement in Turkey and Russia, and urged those governments to comprehensively


address the needs of IDPs and facilitate their voluntary return, local integration and

resettlement. In Russia, over 150,000 people had been displaced by successive separatist

wars that broke out in Ingushetia and Chechnya, victims of internal armed conflict,

generalized violence and human rights violations. In Turkey, the government is expected

to formulate a national IDP plan of action, since it has to deal with more than 1 million

IDPs, victims of fighting between the Kurdish PKK and Turkish military, especially in

the Southeastern provinces.

Also in 2009, several governments in Eastern Europe worked on implementing

plans for IDPs. The government of Georgia adopted and began to implement a revised

action plan to execute its State Strategy on IDPs. The Bosnian Ministry for Human

Rights and Refugees revised the Strategy for achieving durable solutions for refugees,

displaced persons and returnees which will be presented to Parliament in the present year

for approval. Bosnia has more than 130,000 Bosnian Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks IDPs

displaced by the 1992-95 war. Meanwhile, in Armenia the government sought foreign

funds for its latest programme to help conflict-induced IDPs return. Armenian’s IDPs are

mainly victims from the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nogorno-Karabakh, and the

majority of them have returned home since the 1994 ceasefire. Most European states have

established domestic normative framework since 1998. However, only three countries –

Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey – have made significant progress in bringing their IDP

legislation into line with the provisions of the Guiding Principles (IDMC, 2010).

Meanwhile, the IDP situation has improved in the Balkans, where there have been

internationally negotiated and monitored agreements as well as advances in EU

integration.

Being the larger donor of humanitarian aid, the United States of America has a

fundamental role in tackling the IDPs issue. The National Security Strategy of the US,

issued in 2002, elevated the importance of development mentioning internal displacement

as a fundamental element of U.S. security. The United States Agency for International

Development, created in 1961 to provide assistance for countries recovering from

disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms, became the U.S.

Government lead coordinator on internal displacement. The Agency works closely with

the US Department of State and other US Government entities, United Nations agencies,

international organizations and local institutions in affected countries (USAID, 2004).


However, the absence of an overall US government policy on humanitarian aid and a

continued lack of institutional clarity in dealing with IDPs remain as challenges to be

addressed to improve US response to internal displacement (COHEN; CALABIA, 2010).

In October 2009 the adoption of the African Union’s Convention for the

Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced People in Africa – the Kampala

Convention – was recognized as a historic achievement (IDMC, 2010). The Kampala

Convention is the first regional instrument in the world to impose legal obligations on

States to protect people from arbitrary displacement, to provide protection and assistance

to IDPs during displacement, and to seek durable solution for them. The Convention will

come into force once it has been ratified by 15 member states of African Union. While

several countries are in the process of drafting national policies or laws to protect and

assist IDPs, only Sudan and Uganda have national IDP policies and only the Liberian

government has incorporated the Guiding Principles into domestic law (IDMC, 2010).

Sudan accounts for more than 6 million displaced by North-South conflict and

the ongoing conflict in Darfur region.

By the end of 2009, the Great Lakes Pact on Security, Stability and

Development in Africa’s Great Lakes Region had been ratified by its 11 member states.

Both the Great Lake Pact and the Kampala Convention mark a real opportunity to address

the protection and assistance needs of IDPs in African countries. The Protocol to the

Great Lakes Pact on the Prevention and Suppression of Sexual Violence against Women

and Children also addresses the problem of rape and sexual violence in Africa.

Ratification must now be followed by concrete action by member states to realize

commitments to ensure the prosecution of perpetrators and the protection of women and

children who are survivors of sexual violence. Lack of political will and financial

resources contribute for the aggravation of IDPs issue in the region.

In South and South-East Asia the responses of the national authorities to

internal displacement situation vary greatly, but overall they have been insufficient.

While in India, Myanmar and Indonesia’s Papua Region governments refused to

acknowledge the existence or severity of displacement situations, and restricted the

access of independent monitors or agencies seeking to assist IDPs, most governments

acknowledged their responsibility towards their displaced population and collaborated

with the international community to assist them. However, few had the capacity or the


will to comprehensively address internal displacement. The drafting of IDPs laws in some

countries, such as Sri Lanka and Philippines, did not make significant progress during

the year of 2009. There was no coordinated regional response to the problem, and most

countries continue to avoid acting across their borders.

Progress was made in the past year with the establishment of the ASEAN Inter-

Governmental Human Rights Commission, the region’s first human rights mechanism.

However, due to a number of limitations such as the weakness of its mandate and the

absence of a formal mechanism for individual complaints, there are still doubts among

countries and international community about its effectiveness as an instrument to

implement human rights principles and standards.

The national responses to internal displacement in Middle East remain uneven.

Several factors continue to undermine an effective response including restrictions on

humanitarian access, insecurity including targeting of humanitarian workers, lack of

resources or will to recognize, assist or protect IDPs, and will and capacity of the

international community to address crisis situations.

In Lebanon, state institutions, national societies, and the international

community have responded to several waves of displacement. However, the situation

remains unstable in southern Lebanon and Nahr el Bared.

In Iraq, several steps were taken to address the needs of returnees and IDPs, but

the ability of the government to provide durable solutions was weakened by insecurity,

lack of national reconciliation, and insufficiency of resources and institutional capacity.

Prevailing insecurity also limited the capacity of national and international NGOs and

UN agencies to respond effectively.

In Gaza, advocacy denouncing demolition order against Palestinian’s homes and

revocation of residency permits in the West Bank remained ineffective in changing Israeli

policies, while Palestinian authorities continued to be impaired by their limited

jurisdiction and political disunity (IDMC, 2010).

In Yemen checkpoints established by government forces, opposition groups or

warring tribes increasingly limited the movement of civilians, including those seeking to

flee. After the resumption of conflict in the second half of 2009, the government took

some steps to facilitate a coordinated response; however, humanitarian agencies still


facesa range of challenge in gaining access to IDPs due to the prevailing insecurity, the

restrictions imposed on them, and limited resources.

In Latin America, resolution 24178 adopted by the Organization of American

States in June 2008 urges member states to consider using the Guiding Principles as a

basis for their plans, policies, and programs in support of IDPs and to continue to

consider implementing them in their domestic laws or policies.

In Colombia, in 2009, the Constitutional Court declared the right of IDPs to be

included in the registry and directed the government to address under-registration once

and for all by launching information campaigns; by registering people displaced in

previous years whose application had been rejected; and by sharing information between

the IDP registry and other government’s databases. Colombian statutory law, case law,

and administrative law reference the Guiding Principles repeatedly. The first statute on

displacement was adopted in the country in 1997. This statute created the National

System for the Integral Attention to the Displaced Population (SNAIPD), which

comprises 18 governments’ agencies at different levels (IDMC, 2009). Also, as

mentioned above, Colombia faces the second-largest case of IDP in the world, and the

large numbers of newly displaced people are overwhelming the capacity of the

government and humanitarian agencies.

In Peru, a law on internal displacement passed in 2004 represented a positive

step towards the protection of IDPs rights (IDMC, 2010). It incorporated the Guiding

Principles on Internal Displacement into local legislation, and created a focal point within

the Ministry of Women and Social Development (MIMDES) to coordinate the response

to internal displacement. The IDP division of MIMDES has since improved the the

Peruvian policy regarding IDPs by starting to register them for eventual reparations and

to implement some livelihoods programmes. However, during 2009, there was no

progress in registering and accrediting IDPs according to the 2004 statute (IDMC, 2010).

In Guatemala, 13 years after the end of the conflict between government forces

and insurgent factions grouped under the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity, little

progress has been made in implementing the measures for reparations included in the

8 Organization of American States General Assembly, AG/RES. 2417 (XXXVII-O/08): Internally Displaced Persons (2008), paras. 2 and 3.


peace accords. The government has proved itself unable to provide security,

accountability, and access to justice to IDPs.

5. QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. What legal definition for internally displaced people can be defined under

the UNHCR framework?

2. What actions could be taken to better support IDPs? What particular

assistance should vulnerable groups such as women, children and elderlies receive?

3. What are the difficulties regarding the conciliation of internal commitment

and the respect of national sovereignty?

4. What could be an alternative approach from the cluster approach?

5. How can the international community act to prevent internal displacement

causes – not only assisting people who have already been displaced? What measures

should be taken in order to tackle the origin of the problem?

6. In what extension poverty causes or enhances internal displacement?


TOPIC AREA B: CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT

By Anaís Passos, Cláudia Pfeifer, Helena Melchionna Julien Demeulemeester, Letícia

Zenevich.

“Our foot is stuck on the accelerator and we are heading towards an abyss.”

(Ban Ki-Moon, 2009, at the World Climate Conference)

1. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The connection between climate change and human migration is not a recent

phenomenon. It is broadly acknowledged that throughout the course of history, climatic

changes of different kinds have noticeably altered the landscape, the flora and the fauna,

and, hence, man's way of life. Although aware that environment is not the only factor

controlling man's destiny, for many years academics have taken into account the role

played by environmental factors in explaining the history of population and the

emergence of cities. For instance, the passage across the Bering Straits to America 13.000

years ago was possible due to the low sea levels of the ice Age; whereas in a different

period of history, the desertification of the Sahara and the Arabian Peninsula have played

a key role in the emergence of ancient Egyptian civilization.

In that sense, it is important to observe that climatic events have had various

effects over communities in different parts of the world and throughout different periods

of history. Their influence in a given time and place have been greatly connected with the

way those communities were organized and their sources of subsistence. For example,

cereal cultivation by settled societies who have based their livelihood in non-irrigated

agriculture was highly dependent on the amount and incidence of precipitation during the

growing season. When the level of precipitation decreased significantly – or on the

occurrence of a drought period –, the usual outcomes were harvest failures and famines;

which in turn would, most of the times, cause the affected communities to leave their

homes. For example, in the case of the Zhou tribes, in China, around 3550 and 2200 B.C.,

the climatic conditions were one of the main factors that contributed to the constant

relocations of that community on the proximities of the Yellow River.


The situation is quite different, however, in societies that based their subsistence

on irrigated agriculture. The Ancient Egyptian civilization, for instance, had its powerful

crop production totally depending on the Nile River. Its territory had an arid climate with

extremely low levels of precipitation, but because they have developed a rather

sophisticated irrigation system, the people’s livelihood was not threatened by climatic

events. Hence, in those conditions, climate was not a migration driven force.

Taking that into account, it is important to realize how the phenomena resulted

from climate events have influenced humankind and its history throughout time. For

instance, the strong link between pluviometry and population density has been clearly

shown in the case of the droughts verified in the American Great Plains, in the 1890s,

1910s and1930s, which were responsible for the mass displacement of up to 75% of the

population from drought-stricken regions towards California. The same connection

between climate phenomena and population displacement was also noticed in the Sahel

region, between the years of 1969 and 1974, where the droughts triggered the migration

of millions of farmers and nomads to the cities (PIGUET, 2008). Other significant

examples of droughts causing great population displacement can be given by the Sudan

case, in 1988, when nearly 2.7 million people were forced to migrate (MAHRAN, 1995);

as well as in the North-east of Brazil, in 1985, where severe climate conditions were the

main responsible variable for a mass rural-urban displacement (SMITH, 2001).

Nevertheless, drought has not been the only climate related circumstances that

had affected communities and caused human migration. For millennia, people have

sought to protect themselves against the negative impacts of high-magnitude floods. In

fact, city walls against flooding are reported to have been built as early as 4000

years ago in China (WU, 1989). This ancient concern is well justified, considering that

extraordinary floods – which were part of a climate variability period that lasted

approximately from 4200 B.C to 4000 B.C – have caused the collapse of the highly

developed Neolithic civilizations over the plains along the lower course of the Yellow

River and the Yangtze River for destroying the settlements and farmlands. Floods have

continued on causing destruction and deaths in China, as exemplifies the floods of 1954

along the Yangtze River, which killed more than 30.000 people, and the floods of 1998,

which devastated parts of central China killing more than 3.600 people and leaving 15

million people homeless (SUH, 1998 and CHINA DAILY, 1998)


Similar flood tragedies have also happened in different parts of the world,

tending to have more drastic effects on developing countries. This is illustrated, for

example, by the Mexican flood of 1999, when widespread flooding hit Gulf of Campeche,

and devastated mudslides in nine Mexican states. More than 400 people died, and at least

200.000 people lost their homes, being either temporarily or permanently displaced. In

that sense, it is noticed that flood disasters have also been accounting for a major force of

displacement all over the world as 167 million people were affected by them by the year

of 2002 (IFRC, 2003).

At last, other climate related natural phenomenon that has significantly affected

mankind for ages are the hurricanes and tropical cyclones. Bangladesh was one of the

world most affected countries by this kind of natural disaster, facing a total of 117

tropical cyclones from 1877 to 2003 (ISLAM and PETERSON, 2009). The Bhola

tropical cyclone that hit Bangladesh in November of 1970 was one of the most

devastating of the century with a loss of at least 300.000 lives. In that case, the storm not

only had social implications, but also some political side-effects, since the Pakistani

government was severely criticized for its handling of the relief operations following the

storm, what helped trigger the revolution that brought independence from Pakistan and

the establishment of Bangladesh as a country. Nevertheless, the region has yet suffered

again with another cyclone of high magnitude, in April of 1991, which killed

approximately 140.000 people and destroyed more than 800.000 homes.

Despite the fact that climate, as well as the phenomena linked to it, has been an

important variable to determine population movements throughout history, only recently

the matter of human migration caused by climate change related factors has more

seriously aroused in the international arena. In fact, the issue strongly emerged

concomitant to the increasing concerns of the international community on climate change

and its consequences. In 1985, the term "environmental refugees" was first coined as a

report title for the United Nations Environment Programme, underlining the early

concerns of the international community to the effects that climate change and natural

disasters in general could have upon people. Ever since, even though it is not a consensus

within the international community, the term has been widely diffused in both political

and academic circles (EL-HINNAWI, 1985).


Other significant contribution to the debate of climate change and the human

displacement linked to it was made with the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change (IPCC), in 1988, and the release of its First Assessment Report, in

1990, which stated that “the greatest effects of climate change may be those on human

migration as millions are displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and severe

drought.” (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1990) That point was certainly

reinforced by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, at the United

Nations Climate Change Conference of 2009, in Copenhagen, who stated that “climate

change will become the biggest driver of population displacements, both inside and

across national borders, within the not too distant future” (UNHCR Website, 2009).

The past experiences described above regarding the relationship between human

migration and environmental changes throughout history are very important to be taken

into account when tackling the current climate change conjecture. Although, as

previously argued, this situation is, by no means, a new one; it has recently been taking

growing and devastating proportions. The international community, in this regard, must

be aware of the challenges of the past as to elaborate better manners to address the matter

of discussion within the UNHCR scope.

2. STATEMENT OF THE ISSUE

2.1 Climate change

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stated that climate change “is the greatest

collective challenge we face” (CBC News, 2009). It is a clear-cut fact that it is a natural

phenomenon. However, it is also remarkable that anthropogenic action has performed an

extensive role in deepening this otherwise natural event. Hence, it is beyond any cavil

that the greenhouse effect is a naturally-driven effect, which has permitted life in earth to

develop, in retaining heat in the atmosphere. Briefly, greenhouse gases, such as carbon

dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, are responsible for naturally maintaining some of the

sun’s radiation on earth, instead of reflecting it back into space, thus keeping the world a

warm place. Nonetheless, when compounded with greenhouse gases originated from


anthropogenic action, the global temperature may achieve levels that could lead to the

elimination of all forms of life on earth.

On this sense, studies estimate an increase of the global average surface

temperature of 0.74°C over the last century, and the temperature is still expected to

increase even more, between 1.8°C and 4°C by the year 2100 – a rapid and profound

change – should the necessary action not be taken. Even if the minimum predicted

increase takes place, it will be larger than any century-long trend in the last 10,000 years.

Hence, it is not on discussion whether climate change can be stopped – it is irreversible,

as its consequences are already being brutally experienced. What can be done, on the

other side, is the larger possible reduction of its future effects, which includes agricultural

and hydrological drought, tropical cyclones, inundation, flooding and desertification,

among others. All these factors, bringing serious consequences by themselves, do also

aggravate one of the already most triggering questions of public international law – the

(forced) human migration, be it as refugees or as internally displaced persons – a major

issue which urges for a proper and humanitarian solution, as it involves human dignity,

free will (the will of oneself to determine where to live and where to go), human rights

and sovereignty, in a difficult – yet necessary – balance of values and principles.

In order to establish consensus over these questions, which are highly

charged with a political voice on how to respond to climate change, the IPCC, a political

neutral organ, charged with the production of non-biased researches on climate change

was created in 1988. This Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was

planned by the World Metereological Organization and the United Nations Environment

Programme (UNEP). In 1990, this group delivered a first assessment report, which

contained the views of 400 scientists. This report stated that global warming was real and

action towards it was urgent. These findings induced governments to create the United

Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was ready for

signature at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development,

popularly known as the "Earth Summit", in Rio de Janeiro. IPCC has now a well-

established role, in reviewing worldwide researches and issuing regular assessment

reports. Moreover, the UNFCCC propose definitions in order to bring consensus over this

matter. Thus, climate change is thereby defined as “a change of climate which is

attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global


atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over

comparable time periods” (UNFCCC, Art.1). This conceptual systematization allowed

governments to seek for a joint response, guided by the principles and commitments set

forth in the UNFCCC, to decrease the worst projections which come along with the

increase of the global temperature.

Nevertheless, surrounding the global commitment theoretically reached by this

convention, there is also an intriguing ethical problem to be approached: the countries

which did contribute largely for the emission of carbon dioxide, namely, the countries of

the socio-political North, are the ones which are less likely to experience the worst effects

of climate change. Concretely, the developed countries emitted two thirds of the carbon

dioxide resulting from anthropogenic action in the atmosphere, while countries in

development have only contributed with one third of these emissions (NOBRE, 2010).

Accordingly, there is an increasing debate on how to balance the unequal contribution of

each country to this problem, and yet to find a wide array of gradual and permanent

solutions which can arrange for each country to low its dioxide emissions without barring

its progress and development. Here, it is important to underline the principle of ‘common

but differentiated responsibility’, that is, despite their common responsibilities, important

differences exist between the stated responsibilities of developed and developing

countries. This principle evolved from the notion of the ‘common heritage of mankind’

and is a manifestation of general principles of equity in international law. As so, it

recognizes historical differences in the contributions of developed and developing States

to global environmental problems, and differences in their respective economic and

technical capacity to tackle these problems.

The Rio Declaration states:

In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command (UNEP, 1992).

Similar language exists in the Framework Convention on Climate Change; parties

should act to protect the climate system “on the basis of equality and in accordance with

their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.”

Furthermore, in order to counterbalance this sensible situation, in which political voices


can be louder than science itself, it is important to recourse to the IPCC's findings, once

they reflect global scientific consensus and are apolitical in character. Thusly, IPCC

reports are frequently used as the basis for decisions made under the Convention, and

they played a major role in the negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol, a second, more

far-reaching international treaty on climate change that entered into force on 16 February

2005, after long rounds of negotiation to try to conciliate these disparities, in imposing

varying limits on carbon dioxide emissions.

Moreover, in December 2009, officials from over 110 countries met in

Copenhagen, Denmark, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in order to

conclude an agreement that would enter into force after the first phase of the Kyoto

Protocol expires in 2012. The meeting was the culmination of a process that began in

2007, when Governments at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali,

Indonesia, launched the Bali Road Map – a two-year negotiating process to design an

ambitious and effective international climate change deal to follow on the first phase of

the Kyoto Protocol. Although the rounds of negotiation ended with only 26 countries

signing the Copenhagen Accord, this Accord, yet to prove its value and not binding in

character, has, at least, a symbolic strength by drawing the world leaders’ attention to this

issue. Some countries left Copenhagen unsatisfied with its outcome, as Brazil, Bolivia,

Cuba, the Maldives, Tuvalu and Venezuela. Others were pleased, in recognizing in the

Accord a joint start to a further commitment, as Australia, Great Britain, India, People´s

Republic of China and the United States.

2.2 Human displacement

In its First Assessment Report in 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC) stated that the gravest effects of climate change may be those on human

mobility (IPCC, 1990). In this context, it also alarming to understand that, whether more

rigid or more complacent measures are taken, one fact is indisputable: people moving as a

result of environmental changes by the middle of this century, either within their

countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis, will vary between 50 and

200 million.


A series of challenges is imposed for the displaced, as well as for the authorities

concerned, such as evacuations before and during disasters, relocations when returning to

the original place of residence is not possible or too dangerous, and, more generally, the

need to find durable solutions for those among the displaced who cannot return and

resume their normal lives in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. Another point to

complicate this issue is the double obligation carried by States – which have to, under

human rights obligations, prevent ensuing threats to the life and property of persons; at

the same token, the State has also the duty to respect its individuals´ decisions, abstaining

from exerting any pressure regarding the freedom of movement of its population. It

means that people displaced by natural disasters or other effects of climate change have

the right to freedom of movement, including the right to freely decide whether to remain

in or to leave an endangered area and the right to opt freely to return to their homes, to

relocate elsewhere in the country or to locally integrate. It should encourage governments

to structure an institutionalized solution to provide to these persons an efficient

withdrawal, conditions to a proper reestablishment, balancing all these factors with the

guarantee of respect for their crystallized human rights. Notwithstanding the future

provisions, brutal results of climate change are already being sensed on the sphere of

human displacement, although it is important to highlight that climate change and human

migration have had a long-term association throughout human history, as

abovementioned. Climate change could be associated with the increase of migration in

several ways, either directly or indirectly, for in the discussion of environmental refugees

many scholars agree that migration caused to a substantial part by environmental change

is happening. Nonetheless, what generally stands out is the key concept of multi-causality

of migration. There are many other factors interacting dynamically that play an important

role in movements of migration, even where the effects of climate change are present.

Hence, the concomitance of climate change and migration is an indicator for but should

not be mistaken as evidence for a causal linkage. Another point at stake is that it cannot

be presumed that natural disasters are the only drivers, in the sphere of climate change, of

displacement. On this sense, it is important, prior to providing cases of direct relation

between climate change and human displacement, to highlight that, in this movement, the

indirect relations between climate change and displacement shall also be brought to

attention (Perch-Nielsen, 2004). On the other hand, for a more concrete framework, it is


important to bring to the spotlight the effects already in course of the rising sea in the

Pacific Islands, which is, so far, the most affected region in the world by this

consequence of climate change. At these islands, the rising sea levels have been a source

of great insecurity for the populations in question, which are being forced to consider

relocation as a very likely option.

One of the most extreme cases is the island of Tuvalu, which has its territory

invaded by sea water at every high tide – interrupting the potable water supplying on the

island, threatening the inhabitants’ subsistence. An unilateral action has been developed

by New Zealand to support the Tuvalu people. It has created a special immigration

program aiming to relocate on its territory the entire population of Tuvalu – which is

currently estimated in approximately 11 thousand people. Nevertheless, the international

community as a whole still has to undertake several other actions regarding situations

involving the rising of sea levels. It should be stressed that these circumstances are not

restricted to the Pacific Islands. More than 600 million people live in low-lying coastal

zones; out of this number, 438 million live in Asia and 246 million in the poorest

countries of the world. The flood zones are particularly populated in South Asia (near the

Indus and Ganges-Brahmaputra rivers) and East Asia (near Mekong and Yangtze rivers).

If effective measures of mitigation and adaptation are not taken, large numbers of people

may have to migrate in decorrence of floodings in these areas.

Similar conditions are faced by the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea,

where a combination of coastal erosion, destruction of sea walls and inundation by salt

water has severely damaged the fertility of the lands, which are the source of subsistence

to most citizens. Since emergency food supplies are not likely to last for long, there is a

very clear possibility of relocation of these population to the plantations on the

neighboring island of Bougainville as soon as 2011 (UNHCR Website).

Another effect of climate change has been frequent drought conditions and

desertification in some regions of the planet. According to the International Disaster

Database, 146 million people, on average, were affected by droughts between 2000 and

2005 (International Disaster Database, 2009). The latest report of the IPCC predicts

increased water shortages especially in the Asian and African continent, which threatens

to affect 74 to 250 million by 2020. For instance, Ethiopia has been facing serious


drought conditions since 2007, which have led to starvation and driven population

migration to refugee camps in other parts of the continent (IPCC, 2010).

These conditions are also being faced by the people in Somalia, which is

considered to be one of the most vulnerable states of the world to the impacts of climate

change (UNDP, 2008). Somalia, a collapsed State that has faced 20 years of armed

conflicts, droughts and floods, had its drought cycle changed over the last decades from

once every ten years to become an unpredictable constant. “In 2009, the drought

intensified in many regions, and in the places that experienced rain, it often came in the

form of unexpected and heavy rainfalls that often killed off much of the livestock that

was already weak from the drought” (KOLMANNSKOG, 2009). For a country that has

livestock and rain-fed agriculture as its main livelihoods and components of the economy,

this environment circumstances are of the utmost gravity. In addition, the combination of

armed conflicts with climate change effects has been working as a major stimulator to

mass migration flows both inside and outside Somalia’s borders. In one hand, the scarcity

of resources appears to escalate the preexisting conflicts by increasing competition;

whereas these conflicts, on the other hand, may exacerbate the droughts, considering that

war and military activities have detrimental impacts on the environment. Initially, many

Somalis have been fled, from the intense conflict in Mogadishu and its surrounding areas

towards the countryside; however, due to constant drought and environmental

degradation in these areas, they have often been forced to go across the border to Kenya

(Refugee Studies Centre, 2008). The climate situation in Kenya, nevertheless, is also very

fragile, considering that some parts of the country has faced severe flooding conditions in

1997, 2003, 2006 and once again in 2009-2010; whereas other parts of the country have

been threatened by terrible droughts (Refugee Studies Centre, 2008).

Conversely, in Burundi, where 94 percent of the working population is

employed in the agricultural sector, many as subsistence farmers with rain-fed farms, the

effects of climate change are devastating The drought in Kirundo, for example, in 2007,

in the northern region of Burundi, was characterized by family separation with the male

head of household leaving in search of work, while in conflicts and sudden-onset

disasters entire families are often forced to move (UNDP, 2010).

Also in Africa, climate changes in Nigeria are making some land uninhabitable

and affecting water supplies – threatening people’s basic needs and triggering


displacement. Nigeria is working to meet the Hyogo Framework for Action’s (HFA) five

priorities for action9. The HFA is a key instrument for implementing disaster risk

reduction, adopted by the UN Member States to the period 2005-2015. Its overarching

goal is to build resilience of nations and communities to disasters, by achieving

substantive reduction of disaster losses by 2015 – in lives, and in the social, economic,

and environmental assets of communities and countries. Ten years after being set up,

Nigeria’s National Emergency Relief Agency (NEMA) has achieved great improvements

in terms of structures put in place for managing disasters. However, it is obvious that in

many cases there has been poor execution of responsibilities by the authorities at state

and local government levels. Most flood victims do not get compensation or relief during

flood disaster; if it comes, it usually comes too late or with strings attached (UNDP,

2010).

Moreover, climate change has caused sudden-onset disasters, such as floods and

storms. According to the International Disaster Database, between 2000 and 2005

approximately 106 million people were affected by flooding worldwide, whereas 38

million were affected by hurricanes (International Desaster Database, 2009). An example

of that is the Katrina Hurricane, a Category 4 Storm that hit the Gulf Coast region of the

states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, in the United States of America, on 29th

August of 2005. Katrina has brought about the displacement of over 1 million people,

mostly of whom have moved to other states in the US, especially

Texas, Tennessee, Georgia and California (International Desaster Database, 2009).

However, after a certain level a region can no longer be capable of sustaining

itself. At this point, national (and regional) adaptation strategies should therefore

incorporate migration as an adaptation option – recognizing, for instance, that people can

often live and keep their assets in more than one place. In Botswana, for instance, many

of the urban poor rely on livestock and farmland in rural home areas for food and income

reserves. Yet, as non-residents in their home area, they are not entitled to drought relief

and risk heavy losses without compensation in the event of failure of the rain.

Moreover, besides these effects already in course, the so-called hotspots should

be brought to the spotlight. Hotspots are zones where the consequences of the climate

9 The HFA five priorities action are: (1) Make Disaster Risk Reduction a Priority; (2) Know the Risks and Take Action; (3) Build Understanding and Awareness; (4) Reduce Risk; and (5) Be Prepared and Ready to Act. More information available at http://www.unisdr.org/eng/hfa/hfa.htm Last access: September 2, 2010.


variability are to be of the utmost gravity for humanitarian purposes. Hence, these zones

are also more likely to have either migrance and/or internal displacements. Moreover,

specific hazards associated with climate change, such as floods, cyclones and droughts,

were mapped in relation to factors influencing human vulnerability. In this sense, flood-

risk hotspots were identified in Africa (particularly in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, the

Great Lakes region, Central Africa and South-east Africa); Central, South and South-east

Asia; and Central America and the western part of South America. Concerning drought-

risk hotspots, they are mainly located in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia (particularly

Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India) and South-east Asia (notably Burma, Vietnam

and Indonesia). Finally, the cyclone-risk hotspots include Mozambique and Madagascar,

Central America, Bangladesh, parts of India, Vietnam and several other South-east Asian

countries (Perch-Nielsen, 2004).

2.3 Climate change and conflicts

Another crucial correlation that should be addressed is the one between climate

change and the increase of conflicts

According to the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), the

sudden disaster conflicts are likely to occur more frequently in the future (WBGU, 2010).

In this sense, Darfur is often used to illustrate how climate change can interact

with other factors to trigger a violent conflict. When Darfur first made headlines, the

most common explanation of the violent conflict emphasized the ethnic differences

between Arabs and Africans. However, more recently prominent officials such as the UN

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon have argued that “the Darfur conflict began as an

ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change” (Washington Post, 2007).

Specifically regarding Darfur, UNEP’s post-conflict environmental assessment

(UNEP, 2007) indicates that there is a very strong link between land degradation,

desertification and conflict in Darfur. The boundary between desert and semi-desert is

shifting southwards partly due to declining precipitation. This is commonly attributed to

climate change, although some authors maintain that the semi-arid Sahel with strong

climate variability is not a good case for illustrating or proving climate change. The 20-

year drought, regardless of cause, played an important role by reducing the land available


for farming and herding, but as the UNEP assessment also recognizes, climate (and/or

environmental) change alone does not offer the full explanation for the outbreak or the

extent of the violent conflict. All countries in the Sahel have felt the impact of global

warming, but so far only Sudan has experienced such devastating conflict (UNEP, 2007).

Also storm and flood disasters along densely populated regions, like the coasts of the

Indian subcontinent and China, can cause major damage and initiate or intensify

migration processes which in turn could trigger a conflict. For instance, Bangladesh is

likely to suffer natural disasters (OCDE, 2003), resulting in longer-distance and longer-

term migration, causing neighboring India to build a fence-wall along the border to avoid

mass migration from Bangladesh (OCDE, 2003). Besides, Bangladesh is plagued by

political violence and a growing trend toward Islamist extremism.

Finally, another country that is important to be mentioned is Indonesia. It faces

increased vulnerability to the effects of climate change, especially rising sea levels,

changes in precipitation and extreme weather events. Climate projections indicate that the

mean wet-season rainfall will increase across most of Indonesia while the length of the

dry season is expected to increase, bringing increased risk of floods during the rainy

season and drought in the dry season (DFID, World Bank, Ministry of Indonesia, 2007).

This will have a particular impact on water resources, agriculture and forestry, health and

infrastructure. Such an impact could also lead to migrations and/or displacement.

2.4 Jurisdisction and concepts

Furthermore, not only the major scale of effects due to climate change is deeply

preoccupying; another issue at stake is that people displaced solely due to the effects of

climate change cannot be described as climate refugees, since there is no accepted

definition for it. This lack of classification was already called “the main normative

protection gap” (UNHCR, 2009) for persons displaced. According to the United Nations,

a refugee is

[any person who] owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country (UN, 1951).


Consequently, the terms “environmental refugee” and “climate refugee” have no

legal basis in international refugee law, creating a point of controversy among scholars

and practitioners. On one hand, the term “climate refugees” implies a mono-causality that

one rarely finds in human reality. A drought, for example, depending on where it

happens, on the measures taken and on the people awareness, may or may not cause a

forced migration or a conflict. That is, we cannot establish a direct relation between

climate change and forced migration without counting on several other factors which may

contribute for these migrations. On the other hand, the lack of a refugee status turns out to

be a barrier against international support and action towards persons on the move because

of climate change-related factors.

Because of the controversy in regard to the classification, two main opinions

arise: 1) some states and NGOs have suggested that the aforementioned convention

should simply be amended and expressly extended to include people who have been

displaced across borders as a result of long-term climate change or sudden natural

disasters; and 2) other NGO’s, however, fear that the broadening of the scope of

protection given by international instruments, as the Convention of Cartagena, will lessen

their efficacy and jeopardize the willing of the governments to properly apply their

clauses (UNHCR, 2009).

While there is aprioristically no legal protection to an environmental (or climate)

refugee crossing borders, there is already a crystallized definition of environmental

refugees, which is

people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people) that jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life. By ‘environmental disruption’ in this definition is meant any physical, chemical and/or biological changes in the ecosystem (or resource base) that render it, temporarily or permanently, unsuitable to support human life (El-Hinnawi: 1985).

Thus, although there is consensus about the definition of a person who flee

home, the lack of a proper legal instrument to deal with these individuals exists and

presents its effects in the international scenario of climate-driven migrations.

Yet, it is important to underline that many of the forced migrants are likely to be

internally displaced, a category which is recognized in the 1998 Guiding Principles on

Internal Displacement (UN Comission of Human Rights, 1998). Additionally, in cases of


severe environmental degradation and sudden disasters, the human right principle of non-

refoulement could also apply. It means that when the risk of certain ill-treatment exists,

people are protected against return to their home. Another solution concerning

international protection could be met by granting humanitarian asylum or another

protected status to those who cannot fit the refugee status, even though not being

considered internally displaced.

Finally, broadening or limiting the scope of the term “refugee” does not alter the

fact that the degree of people’s vulnerability to climatic hazards is determined by a

complex interaction of social, economic, and political processes, which brings us back to

the economical disparities among countries and their consequences in finding a global

solution to refrain the worst projections of the effects of climate change from becoming a

reality.

3 PREVIOUS INTERNATIONAL ACTION

3.1 The UNHCR and climate change

The UNHCR is a humanitarian agency whose mission is to lead and coordinate

international action to protect refugees, internally displaced persons and stateless persons,

solving their main problems worldwide. Although dealing with climate change and its

consequences was not originally in the UNHCR mandate, the agency has been engaging

in some important activities in order to manage climate change and its threats to human

lives. Its actions range from small and long-term projects to mitigate climate change

effects inside the refugee camps and surrounding areas to a myriad of active

participations of its High Commissioner, António Guterres, at the United Nations Climate

Change Conference and other meetings aiming at alerting to the impacts of climate

change upon communities and their relation with human migration.

The agency started to involve with the matter because the effects of climate

change have begun to challenge its operations, threatening the well-being of refugees as

well as undermining UNHCR’s core mandate of asylum protection. This is especially true

in Africa, where many refugee camps, already overcrowded and facing a myriad of

necessities, have also been struggling with severe droughts and floods. In Kenya, for


example, a severe flooding in 2006 left 78,000 uprooted people, and seriously disrupted

UNHCR’s operations. Attempting to mitigate the situation, the UNHCR airdropped 200

tones of relief supplies for thousands of refugees in the area. The aid to address floods in

that region has intensified, considering that, in 2009, UNHCR and its partners adopted a

series of emergency measures such as improving drainage in critical locations around the

areas where the camps are located. They have also been working on some long-term

projects including reforestation, water harvesting and the possibility of using water from

swamps, dams and shallow wells to meet the needs of livestock kept by the refugees and

by the local communities (UNHCR Website, 2009).

In a number of African countries such as Chad, Ethiopia, Namibia and Sudan,

UNHCR is collaborating with the Southern Alliance for Indigenous Resources (SAFIRE)

to promote sustainable forms of agriculture in refugee camps that are confronted with the

problem of deforestation (UNHCR, 2009). For instance, in eastern Chad the effects of

climate change have been causing increasingly strong droughts as the desertification

problem aggravates. UNHCR, hence, acted upon it in partnership with other

organizations and the Chad government to combat the problem with programmes seeking

better management of dwindling water resources, the introduction of alternative fuel

sources (such as gas and biogas), and the mitigation of desertification by reforestation

projects. Furthermore, in order to protect eastern Chad's scarce water reserves, UNHCR

and the Ministry of Environment have implemented a more sustainable strategy that

comprises a three-year approach. Based on it, in 2009, new wells and boreholes have

been dug in the camps and surrounding villages, while a special team searches for new

underground reserves. In the same year, refugee and local communities have been taught

to use different water sources for various purposes: drinking, livestock, cultivation and

construction work. As a next step, electrical pumps will be replaced by manual pumps,

which are easier to use and cheaper to maintain (UNHCR Website, 2009).

The UNHCR also justifies its current role in dealing with the consequences of

climate change by stating that the environmental circumstances have been adding up to

the scale and complexity of human mobility and displacement, further contributing to

conflict and intensifying competition for scarce resources (UNDP, 2010).The agency

stresses that refugees, displaced persons and stateless persons constitute some of the

world’s most vulnerable groups and they are and will continue to be affected by


climate change. Not all of them have the resources to manage or adapt to it. In that sense,

whether the change is slow (such as desertification) or sudden (such as natural disasters),

the impact might be the cause of more displacement both within national borders and

beyond (UNDP, 2010).

In that sense, the UNHCR has engaged in climate change related disaster

prevention and relief only under specific circumstances. That is to say, when refugee and

other persons of concern to the UNHCR were affected; when, within the UN Cluster

Approach for internally displaced people (IDPs), UNHCR assumed the global lead for the

Protection Cluster and Co-lead for the global Camp Coordination and Camp Management

Cluster (CCCM) and for the Emergency Shelter Cluster; or when the UNHCR had the

emergency stocks and the capability to help. The latest case can be illustrated by the

actions of the agency in 2008, when it moved 430 tons of shelter and basic household

supplies into Myanmar in order to aid 130.000 cyclone victims (UNHCR website, 2010).

So far, the UNHCR strategy to help refugees and IDPs affected by climate

change has been based upon four pillars. The first of it is related to the management of

operations, in which the agency has engaged with several partners within the

humanitarian community – including Governments, NGO’s and other international

organizations –, in order to integrate disaster risk reduction in national programmes.

Bearing that in mind, operations in the field have been functioning in accordance with the

UNHCR Environmental Guidelines10, always seeking to increase usage of renewable

energy sources and look for disaster-resistant locations, thus minimizing impact on the

environment. The promotion of environmentally-friendly shelter-construction practices is

another UNHCR priority and, in this respect, it has encouraged the use of sun-dried mud

bricks and reusable roofing components (UNHCR website, 2010).

The second pillar is the Protection Policy, through which UNHCR has been

assisting and protecting all persons that can be qualified as refugees according to the

1951 Convention as well as IDPs fleeing natural disasters, based upon the 1998 Guiding

10 The UNHCR Environmental Guidelines (1996) intends to establish some criteria in order to address environmental concerns in refugee operations. It comprises a number of projects aimed at preventing and mitigating deforestation, depletion of water supplies and the disappearance of wild food resources within the refugee camps and surrounding areas. Its projects include promotion of energy efficient stoves, as well as solar and ethanol stoves where appropriate; environmentally friendly shelter constructions; sustainable agriculture within the camps; reforestation within the camps and surrounding areas; environmental educations and awareness raising among refugees and IDP populations.


Principles on Internal Displacement. Nevertheless, for not filling in the status of refugee

defined by the 1951 Convention, people who cross borders fleeing climate change related

effects may be considered as simple migrants and, hence, not be granted the proper

protection to match with their latent needs. In that sense, there is a major protection gap

that ends up limiting the framework for action of the UNHCR, which can only

superficially tackle the issue.

Furthermore, the UNHCR third strategic pillar is Advocacy. This was pursued,

for instance, through the participation of the agency in the Conference of the Parties

(COP 14)11, in Poznan, in December of 2008, where UNHCR representatives underlined

the need to anticipate the humanitarian response of the international community to

climate change implications, especially when adaptation and mitigation of effects fail.

More recently, the UNHCR has also advocated its cause by a number of submissions to

the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to ensure

climate-induced displacement was properly dealt with in the outcome document of the

United Nations Climate Change Conference, which was hold at Copenhagen in

December of 2009. In that occasion, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António

Guterres, stated that “climate change will become the biggest driver of population

displacements, both inside and across national borders, within the not too distant future”

(UNHCR Website, 2009).

At last, the fourth pillar is the strengthening of strategic partnerships with other

UN agencies, International Organizations, NGO’s and State Governments. For instance,

UNHCR has been closely working in field missions with UNICEF, the World Food

Programme (WFP) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

(OCHA). Whereas some of its main partners outside the UN framework are the

International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Cooperation

with these institutions often includes joint organization and execution of programs and

activities, as well as close coordination and the provision of complementary services.

Furthermore, the UNHCR has also recently started to coordinate its actions with

the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on the Human Rights of Internally

11 The 14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), along with the 4th Session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, which took place on 1 – 12 December 2008 in Poznań, Poland.


Displaced Persons in order to raise awareness about the humanitarian and human rights

implications of climate change (FONTE).

3.2 State Governments and climate change

Besides the United Nations, there were also some important multilateral and

unilateral initiatives by State Governments in order to tackle the matter of climate change

and its impacts on communities. However, so far, International Cooperation between

state parties in order to address the issue has been very limited.

The European Commission, for instance, has taken many climate-related

initiatives since 1991, when it issued the first Community strategy to limit carbon dioxide

(CO 2) emissions and improve energy efficiency. Later on, it launched European Climate

Change Programmes I and II (ECCP I). The goal of the first ECCP, established in 2000,

was to identify and develop all the necessary elements of an EU strategy to implement the

Kyoto Protocol. The second ECCP, which was launched in 2005, is currently the

Commission's main instrument to discuss and prepare further development of the EU's

climate policy.

However, the most significant actions undertaken by state governments on

climate change consequences concerns the matter of rising sea levels and the threat of

sinking faced by the Pacific Islands. A remarkable example of that is the initiative taken

by the New Zeland Government regarding the situation of the Tuvalu people - who faces

a serious risk of statelessness in the future as the sea levels rise. New Zeland created a

special immigration program aimed at relocating in its territory the entire population of

Tuvalu – which is currently estimated in approximately 11 thousand people (UNHCR

website, 2010).

In addition, also concerned about the rapid increase of sea levels, a heterogenic

group of 43 Island-Nations has gathered to form the Alliance of Small Island States

(AOSIS) in the 1990s. The group has intended to call the attention of the international

community to their pressing matter and push international organisms to take the

necessary measures to prevent major climate changes; however, they are not achieving

much success over the last years due to a general lack of interest from some developed

countries to further engage in this situation.


3.3. The international community and climate change

The International Community started to officially recognize climate change and

its consequences in 1988 with the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change (IPCC), which led to the further creation of the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992. So far, there were 14

Conferences of Parties to the UNFCCC and the next Conference is scheduled to

December 2010, in Cancun, Mexico. The last conference, held in the city of Copenhagen

in 2009 resulted in the Copenhagen Agreement, which recognizes the need for keeping

temperature rises to no more than 2ºC, but does not contain commitments to reductions in

the level of greenhouse gases emissions to achieve that goal. Since this conference made

little concrete progress comparing to what was previously stated in the Kyoto Protocol,

the Cancun Conference (COP 16) is expected to advance in the dialogue between

countries in order to generate a more powerful agreement.

The Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005, without being ratified, aims

at limiting and reducing the carbon dioxide emissions and has been an essential reference

for refraining environmental degradation and mitigating climate change in an

international scale. Its goal was to reduce the overall emissions of the greenhouse gases12

by at least 5 per cent below 1990 levels within the period from 2008 to 2012.

Following the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, the Kyoto

Protocol did not impose any legally binding reduction commitments on developing

countries. In addition, the Protocol allows for trading in assigned amount units and for the

fulfillment of commitments by using the certified emission reductions generated by the

implementation of projects in developing countries under the Clean Development

Mechanism (CDM)13. Its first phase of implementation is to be concluded in 2012; hence

the need of the UNFCCC to establish a new agreement that can make significant progress

on the reduction of green house emissions and other issues related to climate change.

12 A to the Protocol defines the greenhouse gases as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6). 13 The CDM allows emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2. These CERs can be traded and sold, and used by industrialized countries to meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.


The UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol are, so far, the greatest achievements of the

international community concerning climate change and its consequences. Nevertheless,

these conventions, even though recognizing, to a certain extent, the consequences that

climate change might have as a migration force, do not stipulate any specific measures

regarding humanitarian matters related to climate change phenomena, including

migration, displacement and, in some cases, statelessness. Hence, humanitarian agencies

and organizations such as the UNHCR keep on stressing the necessity of reaching an

international agreement able to fulfill the gap of protection to affected communities.

Other important steps in addressing climate change include the Bali Action Plan

and the Nairobi Work Programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate

change. The former intended to provide a roadmap towards a new international climate

change agreement to be concluded by 2009, leading to a post-2012 international

agreement on climate change. Its importance is partly due to the emphasis it attributes to

disaster risk reduction, which reflects a growing recognition that climate change

adaptation and disaster risk reduction agendas are closely linked (UNISDR Website,

2009). The latter is a five-year programme (2005-2010) implemented by Parties,

intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, the private sector, communities

and other stakeholders. Its objective is to assist all Parties, in particular developing

countries, to improve their understanding and assessment of impacts, vulnerability and

adaptation to climate change, as well as to make informed decisions on practical

adaptation actions and measures to respond to climate change on a sound scientific,

technical and socioeconomic basis, taking into account current and future climate change.

Furthermore, in regard to natural disasters, which are the climate change’s most

serious consequences, the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) was established at the

World Conference on Disaster Reduction, in 2005, under the United Nations International

Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). Taking the previously mentioned

conventions into account, it is perceived that, until the present moment, the international

community has focused primarily on the scientific aspects of climate change, with the

aim of understanding the processes at play and mitigating the impact of human activity.

In this sense, not much has been done to tackle the humanitarian problems and challenges

climate change is likely to pose in a not too distant future.


4. BLOC POSITIONS

In Australia, the Government believes that the Carbon Pollution Reduction

Scheme (CPRS) is the cheapest and most effective way of tackling climate change.

Australia is investing in clean energy technologies has both signed and ratified the Kyoto

Protocol (UNFCC Submissions, 2009). Furthermore, Australia’s geographic location

warrants further leadership on the issue of climate refugees, since the South Pacific

countries are likely to have their populations relocated to Australia or New Zealand in

case of displacement.

The Government of Canada is committed to tackling climate change through

sustained action, aiming at the construction of a low-carbon economy. This includes

reaching a global agreement, working with its North American partners and prioritizing

domestic actions. Canada has signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol and is aware of the

climate refugees’ issue, being recognized around the world for its leadership in resettling

refugees and people who need protection (UNFCC Submissions, 2009, Government of

Canada, 2010).

Despite being the world biggest producer of greenhouse gases (GHG), China

expressed at Copenhagen its intent to set a “binding goal” to cut CO2 per unit of Gross

Domestic Product (GDP) by 40 – 45% below 2005 levels by 2020. Furthermore, China

requires rich countries to pay 1% of their GDP per year to help the adaptation of

underdeveloped countries. For this adaptation, however, China also pledges the West to

provide low-carbon technology. It signed Kyoto as a developing country; thus, it is not

obliged to cut emissions (BBC News, 2009, UNFCC Submissions, 2009). Furthermore,

China’s huge territory and location is subject of several natural disasters, such as

droughts, floods and earthquakes, and the Chinese government calculates that 30 million

people may be displaced due global warming impacts in the country.

The European Union is composed by 27 European States, accounting to the

world’s third-biggest GHG producer. It desires to cut emissions by 20% from 1990 levels

by 2020, and encourages countries in development to slow the growth of their emissions. It

signed Kyoto, and thus has to get average emissions for 2008-2012 8% below 1990 level.

(BBC News, 2009; UNFCC Submissions, 2009). European countries are not at high risk


zones regarding the impact of climate change on human displacement. However, migration

movements from the South towards the region are to be expected.

Iceland defines a long-term global goal as a central element, considering that the

IPCC data gives enough comfort to be translated into a quantitative goal. Iceland states

that global emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% by 2050 with a peak in

emissions no later than 2020. It also brings to attention the fact that mitigation policies

regarding climate change and human displacement should include gender perspectives

(UNFCC Submissions, 2009).

New Zealand believes that it is necessary to identify cost effective mitigation

opportunities. Therefore it has agreed to accept migrants from Tuvalu, which experts

believe will be completely submerged by the middle of next century. Moreover, New

Zealand finds it essential to use objective criteria and mutual accountability to guide

measurements, reports and verifications on actions and support. It further considers that

national interests should be observed (UNFCC Submissions, 2009).

Norway considers that national strategies should include, as a priority, the

establishment and development of the necessary institutional framework for systematic

national inventories for emissions and removals (UNFCC Submissions, 2009).

With 17.4% of the world's greenhouse gases emissions, Russia’s ratification of

the Kyoto Protocol swiftly pushed its entering into force in February 2005. It supports

recognition of voluntary actions by developing countries (UNFCC Submissions, 2009).

Russia, even though not facing an immediate threat of climate disasters, may be a

destination country for refugees in the region.

In 2010, the United Kingdom’s emissions are predicted to be around 11% lower

than the levels required by Kyoto. UK also has long-term plans to lower CO2 and other

greenhouse gas emissions even further. Furthermore, in 2008 the UK passed a legislation

which introduces the world’s first long-term legally binding framework to tackle the

dangers of climate change. The Climate Change Act includes legally binding targets,

which amount to an 80% cut in greenhouse gases by 2050 (UNFCC Submissions, 2009;

UK Government website, 2010; Climate Change Act, 2008).

The world's second-biggest GHG producer, the United States of America is

prepared to work "with other countries" to raise $100bl/year by 2020 to reduce the effects

of climate change. Despite its intent to cooperate with other countries in fund-raising


activities, US is against Kyoto-style treaties, imposing international legal obligations.,

claiming it would hamper its economy. The US signed, but never ratified Kyoto, and

insists that China, India, South Africa and Brazil must commit to slow the growth of

emissions (BBC News, 2009, UNFCC Submissions, 2009). More concrete actions from

US are fundamental to diminish the consequences of climate change on populations, and

the country itself has already faced several outcomes of climate changes with thousands

of refugees, such as hurricanes, fires and floods.

African Union (AU) comprises 52 African States and accounts for 8.1% of

global emissions. It requires climate funds from rich countries to help poorer nations,

amounting to $100bn a year by 2020. Furthermore, it demands at least 50% of the

aforementioned fund for vulnerable and poor regions such as African and small island

states. Likewise China, the AU requires rich countries to be legally bound to cut

emissions to 40% below 1990 level by 2020. On this path, it describes 20 to 30% cuts as

"unacceptable". African nations signed the Kyoto Protocol as developing countries, thus

not obliged to cut emissions (UNFCC Submissions, 2009). The region hosts several flood

and drought-risk hotspots, what means it will probably have lots of human displacements

related to climate change. If further national measures are not taken, this factor can lead

to the occurrence and aggravation of already ongoing conflicts.

Climate change poses significant risks for Bangladesh, yet the core elements of

its vulnerability are primarily contextual. Between 30-70% of the country is normally

flooded each year and this situation is expected to get more severe in the next decades.

Bangladesh considers that an action plan can be climate specific, addressing the climate

refugees issue; or climate relevant, being reported as part of a Registry to be maintained

by UNFCCC (Bangladesh Climate Action Plan, 2008; UNFCC Submissions, 2009).

Brazil plays a prominent role in the discussions on climate change. It took the

initiative of introducing the idea of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which

was incorporated in the Kyoto Protocol. Moreover, as a developing country, and

according to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, Brazil is not

required to take specific actions to meet targets established by the Kyoto Protocol. Also,

the country is convinced that the international regime embodied by the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol is the

most appropriate legal instrument for directing efforts towards the reduction in the


emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) (Embassy of Brazil in London, 2010; UNFCC

Submissions, 2009). Mitigation measurements regarding climate displacements have yet

to be implemented. Brazil’s Northeast may face more severe droughts causing thousands

of people to migrate, and due to recent floods in the North, South and Southeast regions

the country showed that more infrastructure is needed to avoid mass movements and

deaths.

Colombia is the second biggest producer of ethanol in Latin America, being the

first place in bio-diesel. Furthermore, Colombia also commits to promote the

development and utilization of wind power, solar, geo-thermal. Moreover, it believes that

economic compensations should be given to countries which protect its biodiversity.

Finally, Colombia has signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol (Government of Colombia,

2009; UNFCC Submissions, 2009). Colombia is a country that already suffers from

severe internal displacement, and its local administrations already have enormously

strained budgets and capacity to deal with IDPs. Therefore climate refugees will be a

complicating factor for the government.

The Gulf States (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United

Arab Emirates) account for 2.3% of global emissions. They insist on a deal which

would advance the utilization and storage of carbon capture. Moreover, Saudi Arabia, in

cooperation with OPEC, is seeking for financial aid for oil-producers, in the case that

new agreements require cuts to fossil fuels1 usage. Finally, the Gulf States signed Kyoto

as developing countries and, as so, they are obliged to cut emissions. (BBC News, 2009;

UNFCC Submissions, 2009). Displacements due to the occurrence of droughts are a

probable scenario at the region, a situation that would aggravate the already critical

conditions of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees, for instance.

India is the world's sixth-biggest GHG producer. As so, India rejects legally

binding targets, but wants rich countries to be legally bound, in order to be committed. It

considers that rich countries are the ones which did aggravate climate change the most.

To make its point, India shows the big gap in the per capita emissions of developed and

in development countries. As so, the country requires a 40 per cent cut in rich country

emissions by 2020. Furthermore, it opposes the goal of halving world emissions by 2050.

India signed Kyoto as a developing country; hence, it is not obliged to cut emissions.

(BBC News, 2009; UNFCC Submissions, 2009). Being a drought-risk and cyclone-risk


hotspot, its population is expected to suffer from major displacements due to climate

change and natural disasters. Also, India has suffered several times in recent years from

floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains.

Indonesia believes that developing countries should pursue a sustainable

development strategy. It has become one of the three largest emitters of greenhouse gases

in the world. Furthermore, Indonesia is progressing towards expanding biofuel

production, both for domestic use and technology (National Portal of the Republica of

Indonesia, 2010; UNFCC Submissions, 2009). The country is a drought risk hotspot and,

therefore, will suffer from harder consequences related to climate human displacement.

Because of it, adaptation to climate change is now a major concern of the Indonesian

government. The Ministry of the Environment has initiated the development of a national

strategic approach to adaptation planning. Challenges faced include the availability and

dissemination of relevant information and planning tools, as well as raising awareness of

the issue among decision-makers (DFID, World Bank, Ministry of Indonesia, 2007).

Furthermore, Indonesia is located in a high-risk area for Tsunamis, being the most

affected country (with near 130,000 deaths and 700,000 refugees) in the aftermath of

2004 Tsunami.

Mexico sees that the mitigation activities to be supported shall be defined by

contributing countries, based on their own development needs and in accordance with

their national circumstances, and shall be measured, reported and verified by the

government (UNFCC Submissions, 2009). However the country is not in a high- risk

zone of possible human displacement related to climate change.

The Philippines highlight the importance of early cuts from developed

countries. On that sense, it stipulates at least a 70 per cent decrease of GHG emissions

from 1990 by 2017 and 50 per cent by 2022. The Philippines also recognize that

economic and social development and poverty eradication are the overriding priorities of

developing countries in implementing the balance of obligations when dealing with

climate change (UNFCC Submissions, 2009). The country is at a vulnerable position

regarding human displacement, since it has experienced extreme high temperatures

brought about by climate change.

Singapore believes countries should be permitted to make voluntary but binding

commitments that reflect their own abilities and circumstances. Moreover, it takes


account of “alternative energy-disadvantaged” countries, whose dependence on fossil

fuels and inability to switch over to alternative energy sources are recognized in the

UNFCCC (UNFCC Submissions, 2009). The country is at a vulnerable position

regarding human displacement since it is a cyclone-risk hotspot.

Small Islands (AOSIS) is comprised by 42 islands and coastal states, mostly in

the Pacific and Caribbean Seas. These countries are immensely threatened by climate

change, which can cause – in the most extreme cases, such as Tuvalu’s one – even a

complete flooding in the islands, which would amount to the complete disappearance of

some of these countries and total removal of the population. In some regions, inhabitants

have already been relocated and forced back inland by the sea. Consequently, they regard

climate change as a major issue to their existence, being the hardest affected countries. It

is relevant to highlight that these islands correspond for 0.6% of global GHG emissions,

although they are the ones who will suffer the most from it. Finally, AOSIS members

signed Kyoto as developing countries, as so not obliged to cut emissions (BBC News,

2009; UNFCC Submissions, 2009).

South Africa states that all sources of financing should be mobilized by the

UNFCCC through at least 4 types of funds: (1) public funding (e.g. grant financing,

subsidies); (2) market-linked sources of funding (e.g. revenues from auctioning of

allowances); (3) carbon market (e.g. CDM, ETS, no-lose sectoral crediting baselines); (4)

market financing (e.g. loans on preferential terms, revolving credit, venture capital); and

others. There should be facilitative mechanisms for both mitigation and adaptation, as far

as human displacement due to climate change (UNFCC Submissions, 2009). As well as

other African states, the country is a flood-risk hotspot, which increases the risks of

greater human displacements related to climate change.

Turkey believes in the necessity of a change in the categories of countries, for the

current ones do not reflect the present reality. Furthermore, suitable criteria must be developed,

including: historical responsibility, economic capability, per capita energy consumption,

mitigation capacity, technological capacity, human development index and vulnerability when

addressing the climate refugees’ issue. It further considers using the principle of common but

differentiated responsibilities and equity (UNFCC Submissions, 2009). Even though

Turkey is reached by thousands of refugees every year, the country has a geographic

limitation, according to the Refugee Convention, in which refugees from countries


outside Europe are not eligible to receive international protection from the Turkish

government.

5. QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. What mechanisms can be developed for poor countries to be compensated for

climate changes impacts regarding its population?

2. How can regional and international organizations work towards adopting common

asylum policies to protect climate displaced people?

3. How can the UNHCR develop actions or work along with other organizations in

order to prevent conflicts related to climate displaced persons?

4. What definition is more adequate to classify climate displaced persons under a

legal basis in international refugee law? How can a legal instrument be

implemented in order to protect climate displaced persons?

5. What policies will be needed to meet necessities of internally displaced people

due to climate changes?


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Documents

UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES - FINAL.pdf · ufrgs model united nations2010 1 UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES Dear delegates, You are about to start