Governing International Climate Change-Induced Migration

Abstract

Many lands are getting uninhabitable because of anthropogenic global warming, either through the sea level rise and the severing of climate hazards or through desertification and land degradation. 250 million people may be displaced before 2050 and many will be coerced to find asylum abroad. Yet, no existing international legal regime offers an adequate protection to those displaced by environmental change. This paper argues that governing international climate change-induced migration requires to overcome three fundamental challenges: reconciling individual fundamental rights with state sovereignty, the complexity of the environmental inducement to migration with a somewhat simplified legal framework, and equity consideration with unequal diplomatic influence. Furthermore, it identifies alternatives narratives, actions and actors which could participate in the invention of a necessarily new governance model.

Keywords: environmental migration, Southeast Asia, governance