One of the social costs of development is that dams, roads, ports, railways, mines and logging displace people. In all cases displacement raises important ethical questions. What is owed to people who are displaced? Under what conditions can development that includes displacement be justified? What kind of ethical analysis can provide justification for displacement-inducing development? (1)
The annual displacement by development projects of some ten million people has immense socio-economic and human rights consequences.
The Three Gorges Project on China’s Yangtze River is the largest and perhaps most controversial development-induced displacement project in the world. Official estimates place the resettlement population at over 1.2 million by 2009.
If the exact number of conflict-induced IDPs is unclear (most observers agree there are 20-25 million) the number of those displaced by development projects is even harder to estimate.
In Sri Lanka, the ethnic conflict has continued for nearly 20 years with about 60,000 killed and nearly one million displaced within the island.
Through the adoption of two new treaties on trafficking and migrant smuggling, Statesstates are attempting to curb the growing influence of organizedorganised criminal groups on international migration. The risk of human rights being marginalizedmarginalised in this process is, unfortunately, a very real one.
On the rare occasions that Angola makes the international headlines it is usually to inform the world what a terrible place it is.
In the UK there are currently some 5,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people who are being looked after or supported by local authorities.
In recent years an estimated 20,000 separated children (primarily from Africa and Asia) have sought asylum in western and central Europe.