Excerpt from the Ditchley Conference Report No D94/10, by Sarah Collinson, on the Ditchley Foundation's conference on `International Migration and Population Pressures', September 1994, UK
Discussion focused on the more catastrophic forms of environmentally-generated migration with an immediate element of compulsion. It was noted that the most serious crises of this kind arise when environmental degradation, concentrated populations and poverty combine with civil strife, leaving only a small margin for disaster. Although there was some support for applying the term `environmental refugee' to people forced to move in such circumstances, the overall consensus seemed to be that the concept of refugee should be reserved for people whose migration is forced by political or man-made factors.
It was argued that the use of the term `environmental refugee' would not
only dilute the refugee concept but would do nothing to clarify questions
of insitutional responsibility in relation to prevention and response.
Where movement is forced by a combination of environmental and political
factors, existing refugee instruments and institutions should suffice; in
other cases, a flexible policy framework was likely to continue to prove
most appropriate.
`Environmental refugee' is a term used to describe people displaced through natural and man-made disasters and environmental degradation(1)
. Different types are generally distinguished. One type comprises those temporarily displaced as a result of sudden environmental change which is reversible (those who flee natural disasters and industrial accidents). A second type includes people permanently displaced through long-term or irreversible environmental change, such as those forced to move by dam construction or sea level rise (some authors also include desertification). A third type is defined as those who leave in search of a better quality of life as environmental degradation has eroded their resource base, for example through salination of the soil or deforestation.
Ambiguity of the term `environmental'
The use of the term `environmental' can imply a false separation between overlapping and interrelated categories. For example, the implication of using the term `environmental refugee' is that political, economic and environmental causes of migration can be separated. In practice this is seldom the case, as argued repeatedly in recent literature on disasters which highlights the role of human agency either in causing the disaster itself or in causing populations to be more vulnerable to disasters(2)
. People may become vulnerable when their coping strategies have been undermined directly or indirectly by the state, or their recovery prevented by failure to provide insurance and relief, as in the Dust Bowl disasters in the United States in the 19th and early 20th century(3). War itself also commonly interferes with people's strategies for coping with environmental variability. In the case of drought, for example, famine most commonly occurs in those countries affected by wars(4).
On the cause of the 1987-88 Ethiopian famine, Clay et al(5)
note the correlation between famine areas and specific government policies; in Tigray and Eritrea, famine prevailed in areas outside government control and under military attack; in Tigray and Wollo, famine occurred in areas of forced resettlement; in northern Bale, Hararghe and Shoa, famine occurred as a result of the government villagisation programme; and in Wolega, Illubabor and other administrative regions, the forcibly resettled were themselves unsettled and local production was disrupted.
Studies of migrants' actual decisions to flee show that they are commonly much more complex than a simple `environmental' push as implied in studies of the effects of climate change. Migration is usually only one of a variety of survival strategies pursued by families either simultaneously or consecutively with other strategies such as selling assets, wage-labour, eating bush foods or undertaking short distance migration.
Pankhurst's study of livelihood changes in the 1987-88 drought in Ethiopia shows how coping strategies other than migration were undermined by state restrictions on travel, declining opportunities for both rural and urban wage-labour and increasingly unfavourable terms of trade as grain prices rocketed. He reveals how aid itself placed pressure on peasants to migrate.(6)
`Environmental refugees' as a legal category
Environmental problems ranging from natural hazards to pollution by chemical toxins or radioactive waste can cause human displacement. Many such forced migrants, however, fall outside the categories protected by instruments of international refugee law, both in terms of the text and intent of the drafters, and in terms of much current practice, particularly by Western states.
Originally intended to deal with refugees from communism following the Second World War, the current refugee definition can be used to limit refugee status to those outside their country of origin with a well-founded fear of persecution, the latter being defined in narrow political terms. Such a definition is inappropriate for the root causes of flight in many developing nations, as a narrow political interpretation of `persecution' can exclude those suffering economic and social persecution or the effects of war, as well as victims of natural disasters in countries where the state offers no protection. Migrations attributed to climate change would be similarly excluded.
Some legal theorists are arguing for the definition of a refugee to be rooted in human rights. If this approach is to be more widely adopted, those forcibly displaced across international boundaries for `environmental' reasons could be eligible for international assistance and protection according to whether suffering amounted to a first order violation of human rights.
Alternatively it can be argued that, as disasters and environmental change themselves or an individual's vulnerability to them are commonly the result of human actions, rather than `acts of God', the state has a duty to protect its citizens from them. If the state is negligent or indifferent to meeting its obligations to protect its citizens' basic needs, this breach of the contract with the state could be grounds for international assistance(7)
.
In practice, UNHCR has long assisted a broader group than those included by the narrow Convention definition in its mandate. By 1992, UNHCR recognised groups protected under its mandate to include `internally displaced', `war displaced' and even `other need groups'(8). However, it is important to note that the class of beneficiaries has been expanded without any corresponding broadening of states' legal obligations(9). Which groups are and which are not included is highly political.
Legal and institutional problems arise because refugees currently
receive protection which goes beyond the assistance given to disaster
victims. Legal obligations on the part of refugee-hosting states are well
defined. Barriers against refugees being sent back (refouled) to the
persecuting state are at the core of refugee protection. In contrast,
states' responsibilities with respect to those in humanitarian needs are
much less well defined.
Whilst it is important to highlight environmental problems and their association with migration pressures, in so far as the term `environmental refugee' conflates the idea of disaster victim and refugee, its use brings with it the danger that key features of refugee protection could be undermined and the lowest common denominator adopted.
[Adapted from (eds) Richard Black and Vaughan Robinson Geography and Refugees: patterns and processes of change, Belhaven Press, 1993, pp 159-162.]
Dr JoAnn McGregor, former editor of the RPN, is currently
undertakng research looking at the experience of forced migration and its
role in ocal social, political, economic and ecological change in two
rural areas of southern-Africa: Matebeleland in Zimbabwe and Maputo
province in Mozambique.
1. El-Hinnawi E Environmental refugees, United Nations Environmental Programme, Kenya, 1985; Jacobson J Environmental refugees: a yardstick of habitability, Worldwatch Institute, Washington DC, 1988; Tickell C `Climate change could cause world refugee crisis', British Overseas Development, 7:16, 1989.
2. Wijkman A and Timberlake L Natural Disasters: Acts of God or Acts of Man?, Earthscan, London, 1984.
3. Warrick R A `Drought in the US Great Plains, shifting social consequences', 1983, in Hewitt K Interpretations of Calamity.
4. Duffield M `The internationalization of public welfare: conflict and the reform of the Donor/NGO safety net', 1991.
5. Clay J, Steingraber S and Niggli P The Spoils of Famine: Ethiopian Famine Policy and Peasant Agriculture, Cultural Survival Inc, Cambridge MA, 1988.
6. Pankhurst A Resettlement and Famine in Ethiopia: The Villagers' Experience, Manchester University Press, UK, 1992.
7. Shacknove A `Who is a refugee?', Ethics, 95, pp 274-284, 1985.
8. EXCOM `Note on international protection', UNHCR Executive Committee, 43rd Session, October 1992, Document A/AC.96.799.
9. Goodwin-gill G `Refugees: the expanding mandate of the office of the UNHCR', unpublished, 1988.
July 1997