Strategic litigation seeks to achieve significant changes in the law, practice or public awareness using methods such as the bringing of test cases to court, submitting amicus curiae briefs in ongoing cases, consistently advancing arguable points across a range of…
The Czech Republic is of particular interest in the European context due to several recent flooding disasters which were national emergencies, including in 1997, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2013. Weather extremes and climate variability are not the sole causes of…
In 2013 Typhoon Yolanda (internationally named ‘Haiyan’) put the Philippines on the television screens of the entire world when it drove the country to its knees, with a toll in lives in the thousands and damage to property in the…
In 2013, super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, displacing four million people. In the disaster’s wake, the government announced that, given the country’s exposure to typhoons, it would enforce ‘no build zones’ (NBZs) within 40 metres of the high water…
The cross-border labour migration scheme proposed by the Kiribati government is an example of a governmental response to climate-induced change, where the demographic focal point is at the individual or household level. Kiribati is made up of 32 atolls scattered…
Policy frameworks on disasters and human mobility tend to focus on the role of governments in responding to displacement and on state-based mechanisms for facilitating relocation. However, Pacific states face a number of governance constraints in responding to disaster-related human…
Eleven coal ships were due to collect their cargo from Newcastle in Australia during the daytime of 17 October 2014. Only one ship succeeded in doing so. The other ten were turned away because thirty Pacific Islanders and hundreds of…
Samoa, located in the southern Pacific Ocean and with a population of around 190,000 people concentrated on two main islands (Savaii and Upolu), is very vulnerable to climate change with at least 70% of the population and infrastructure located in…
Both the colonisation process and the mandate and trusteeship systems developed in the aftermath of the first and second World Wars had a profound effect on regional mobility in Oceania. They provided the foundations for a multiplicity of sub-regional ‘clusters’…
The complexity of the drivers that displace communities increases the risks associated with future natural hazards, while exacerbating their existing vulnerabilities. Communities can reduce their vulnerability to displacement by better preparing for disasters and climate change; if displacement does occur,…