Who Manages Climate Migration? Evolving Global Governance

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CHAPTERS 

[00:01:32]: Why global governance matters for predominantly internal migration 

[00:04:13]: Why “climate refugee” is not recognized in international law 

[00:05:30]: Key frameworks shaping climate migration policy: Paris Agreement and beyond 

[00:07:45]: Do non-binding agreements influence real policy decisions? 

[00:12:21]: Climate policy vs. migration policy: why coordination is limited 

[00:19:58]: Non-refoulement: could existing law protect climate-displaced people? 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00.04] 

Hello, and welcome to Changing Climate, Changing Migration. This is a podcast from the Migration Policy Institute that examines how climate change is affecting migration. We look at past, present and future to examine the relationship between the environment and human movement. And we look at what governments, international organizations and individuals are doing about it. My name is Julian Hattem and every episode, I interview a top expert about a different aspect of this connection. I'm the editor of MPI's journal called the Migration Information Source, which has published several articles about climate change and migration. You can read those online at migrationpolicy.org/climate. For this episode, I want to talk about international cooperation and whether or not countries are coming together to respond to and prepare for migrants moving in response to the impacts of climate change. My guest today is Nick Micinski. Nick is a postdoctoral fellow at Université Laval in Canada and a visiting researcher at Boston University in the United States. He's an expert on international governments and global cooperation. And so I'm very excited to be able to talk to him today about what is happening and perhaps just as importantly, what is not happening on this front.

[00:01:26.24] 

So, Nick, thanks so much for coming on.

[00:01:28.18] 

Great, thank you.

[00:01:30.16] 

So let's start by saying why international governance matters. Especially since we know that most migration in response to climate change events, just like most migration or human movement generally, is internal to a country rather than international. So what is the purpose of global cooperation and why should we pay attention to this?

[00:01:50.17] 

Sure. Thank you. Again, this is one of the most important topics, I think when we talk about climate migration. There are a couple of reasons. My first reason I think you have to think about international governance, or global governance, as we usually call it, is that it affects the norms of how states treat their own citizens. Global governance is made up of lots of things that includes formal legal treaties like the Geneva conventions or the 1951 Refugee Convention. And these are like legal treaties that require states to act a certain way to even their own citizens. It also includes informal agreements like the Guiding Principles for International or Internally Displaced People, or more recently, the Global Compacts. I mean, all of these agreements help set standards of how states should treat their own citizens and how they should treat migrants. Now it's an open question of if international law or international norms actually change how states behave. But this is a standard setting behavior and it's not just focused on climate migration. I mean, this is about lots of different behaviors. A second reason, though, is that it helps to coordinate international actors. Like how does the UN respond to these things?

[00:03:08.12] 

It can give better funding, best practices, better coordination and long term planning. And then the third sort of more aspirational thing about global governance is that it's thinking about the long term. How are states socialized into seeing climate displacement as a significant issue and socialized into how they treat, protect and support climate migrants within their borders? Some even hope that this over time will be something like a legally binding standard. But I would have to say right from the beginning, that's very, very early days.

[00:03:47.01] 

And so give me a lay of the land then of what the universe of global governance on the intersection of climate change and migration looks like. You mentioned there the global compacts on migration and refugees. I mean, what kind of mechanisms or agreements or conventions exist for rallying different countries to approach the intersection of climate change and migration cooperatively, collaboratively?

[00:04:12.03] 

I mean, the first thing you have to say is that there is no legal definition for something like a climate refugee or an environmental refugee. This is not, it's very clearly not a category of the 1951 Refugee Convention. One has to be fleeing direct persecution if you're part of that. But that's the most narrow definition of a refugee. Instead, we usually talk about climate induced migrants or other sort of variations of that climate displacement, because climate change and natural disasters aren't just like one, they're just one component of the larger complex reasons. And I mean, your whole podcast series has been talking about that. So that's not new. But the legal mechanisms aren't necessarily there. So climate displacement has been mentioned in a few international agreements. So you can see on the climate change side, the UN sort of climate negotiations over the last few years have started to mention climate displacement as sort of one of the sort of unintended or intended impacts of climate change. So the 2010 Cancun Adaptation Framework mentions it, the 2013 Warsaw Agreement mentions it, and then more recently, the Paris Agreement mentions it. Really only in passing, though.

[00:05:30.06] 

The 2015 Paris Agreement sets up for the first time a task force on displacement. And that is a group now that is meeting regularly to make non binding recommendations about how to avert displacement caused by climate change. Of course, these are non binding commitments and we should talk about that a little bit more. On the other side, like you said, we have the Global Compact for Migration, Global Compact for Refugees. We should go further back though. 1998 Guiding Principles on Internally Displaced Persons is the starting point for us. These are again nine binding principles, but states have really grown to adopt these. There are 30 principles on how we should treat and protect internally displaced people. And of course, climate displaced people are mostly internal. So this applies directly to them. And one of the major things that comes out of that is that the primary responsibility for climate displaced people are national authorities. Right. And I think that's key here is, is establishing who is legally responsible for supporting and protecting. Besides that, while they're not legally binding, the principles were adapted into lots of national laws, best practices and even training manuals. There are a few other sort of things going on in the global governance landscape.

[00:06:56.05] 

You can see the Nansen Initiative platform on Displacement. Disaster Displacement, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Both of these are UN forums that states try to adopt and recommend informal best practices on how to address this. And they, they really are a space for socializing states into making this a priority. Yeah, go ahead.

[00:07:25.00] 

No, I mean those are all interesting, but as you know, many of these are non binding recommendations, which, I mean it seems, as you suggest, have some impact in terms of influencing domestic policies and at least focusing attention, which is one of the steps towards focusing money and policy. But I guess how, how successful are non binding mechanisms? What, what can they do? How, how do they ultimately help to share the burden or try and get the world to speak with one voice? If the criticism, as always, is that they're non binding, countries can ignore them when they see fit, and they sometimes do see fit, I think it's fair to say to ignore non binding mechanisms.

[00:08:06.02] 

Yeah.

[00:08:06.15] 

So I guess you mentioned the IDP as a precedent. I guess. How confident should one be that non binding mechanisms are effective mechanisms?

[00:08:16.05] 

Yeah, well, we don't know how effective all non binding mechanisms are. This is how international law works. Some international law is very binding and has enforcement mechanisms that have places like international courts that you can hold people accountable in and others don't. But I think informal agreements and non binding mechanisms, they have their impact in many ways. I mean, the first is just organizing states into passing their own either national laws or national action plans. And this is something that came out of the Global Compact for Migration. The Global Compact for Refugees was that people states started making national action plans. And that may be informal, it may be actually passing domestic legislation. So places like Ethiopia or Panama passed domestic legislation organized around some of the principles in the global compacts to try to improve conditions for refugees or migrants. And that comes from the momentum and sort of the, the agreements, commitments that were made at the global level. So that's the first place let's make states do this on the domestic level. The next is just adapting best practices. And that can be as simple as sharing some of the most technical things about where it's good to place refugee camps or what kind of nutrition is needed.

[00:09:42.19] 

Like these are very practical things that can be put in training manuals that can be passed on to like emergency response plans in domestic institutions. Right. If we're not relying on the UN to respond to all of these emergencies, you should be relying first on national agencies to do that. And we can share these best practices across the way. And that's all coming through these non binding informal mechanisms that it happens. I mean, you mentioned this a little bit. I think changing funding priorities and mobilizing new investments is a huge thing that comes from these voluntary processes. Just putting climate migration on the radar and on the space as a funding priority is important, right?

[00:10:31.19] 

I mean, often when we talk about policy, we're talking about money, right? And I guess, yeah, what you're the non binding for conventions events are a way to focus attention, which is a way to focus money, right. Is that fair?

[00:10:44.18] 

Focus money and then you hold up a best practice that is shown to work. And then other countries can say, great, we're going to adapt that, put it in our country and you can fund it as well because it worked in a different place. So you see the spread of policies, sort of dissemination in that way, very horizontal. The next though is that I really do think you have to allow time for the slow socialization of states to adapt these numbers. I keep saying that, but it takes so, so long. I mean, we're working with the 1951 Refugee Convention like it's been around for ages and it has compared to the way that we talk about climate migration. But we are just seeing these norms and ideas of climate displacement catch hold at the global level. And we can't assume that they're going to become legal commitments overnight. Right. So the way in which states learn what it means to have climate be a thing that displaces people, start counting, start recognizing individuals and whole communities as at risk or having been displaced by that. Those are slow, gradual steps that over time, years and decades, states are going to learn that this is an issue and start to adapt very nuanced and maybe culturally appropriate mechanisms that are good for their location.

[00:12:08.05] 

But like this informal process is how it happens slowly over years, years and years.

[00:12:16.07] 

So I want to talk briefly about the structure of these governance processes because it seems like we could more or less split them into those about migration, the global compact, things like that, and those about climate and climate change, Paris Agreement, the COP processes. We've talked before and I know this is not the only issue, but there are many places in which this sort of siloization attracts a lot of criticism. Analysts and advocates like to think that we should look at things more holistically and link these issues more intimately. But is that a fair characterization? That either there's the climate change channel and there is the managing migration channel, and that never the twain shall meet, or how much intersection and crossover are are there in these sorts of fora and governance processes?

[00:13:07.13] 

We know that the issue of climate displacement is at the center of both of them. Right. And that's why it's the climate migration nexus. But the tools that we have are coming from separate mechanisms and negotiation processes. So they really have addressed them in separate fora. So on the migration side, the most recent and I think most important are the global compacts. And here, let me just go between the two. The Global Compact on Refugees was organized and sort of led by UNHCR who led the negotiations. And they really blocked any negotiation or opening up of the refugee definition. They weren't going to consider allowing climate to be part of a new refugee definition. And I mean, there's an open debate, civil society actors really pushed and said we want this to be part of it. States said hell no. And UNHCR was quite concerned that even opening up the definition could like, could lower the standard of what a refugee means. Because honestly right now many states are very skeptical of what of giving legal commitments to refugees. So because of that, it was completely blocked from the refugee compact. I mean, there's a few lines in it, but there's not really an open negotiation there.

[00:14:32.04] 

On the migration compact though, they found a much more open space. And in part that's because the migration governance is much younger, newer, it's much more infantile compared to the Refugee Convention, a refugee regime. Within the Global Compact for Migration, they had some real successes. First is that they acknowledge that climate change is a structural factor for migration, sort of recognizing that people make decisions to migrate for many reasons. And one of them could be climate change, natural disasters and environmental degradation. The compact also gives a definition for sudden and slow onset disasters, which is big. It's the first time it's ever mentioned in a migration agreement, even though it's obviously mentioned in climate agreements. And then the Global Compact for Migration argues that they should expand temporary work permits and humanitarian visas for people displaced specifically for climate change migration. So this is the classic example is in the US Temporary protection status and Biden extended it recently for a few categories. This is something that the UN and Other states are trying to open that space as a, as a real mechanism for temporary protecting people internationally. The last thing that the Migration Compact really prioritizes is climate adaptation to prevent displacement before it ever happens.

[00:16:07.11] 

So this means putting funding towards countries of origin, doing it through aid based projects and hoping for development, that is development aid and development projects that try to make climate resilient communities that won't have to be or won't be displaced in the future. You can see this as a win and a loss, right? It is a prioritization of and acknowledging that climate displacement happens. But it means that you're not focusing on rights of climate displaced people and it's a development focus rather than a humanitarian focus, which there's wins and losses there. Your first question though is about what is it, migration or climate? There is stuff happening on the climate side, I would say there's not as much momentum as what happened in the Global Compact for Migration. The space on the climate side happened in the Paris Agreement and that's the Task Force on Displacement. And there they're meeting regularly, collecting data, coming up with some recommendations. They're yet to report back on some of their first recommendations, but we expect that soon. And I think that is going to be one of the spaces that coming up for COP26, the task force will be a big player in how climate migration is addressed.

[00:17:30.16] 

But that's an open question still.

[00:17:33.21] 

And these are global or mostly global institutions and frameworks we're talking about, but there are regional and sub global organizations, systems, frameworks that are also making some progress on this front.

[00:17:47.05] 

Right.

[00:17:47.13] 

Are there some regions or regional groups that have done a better job at focusing on what we're calling climate migration than others?

[00:17:54.06] 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is one of the spaces that regional agreements have been more innovative, they've been more willing to adapt, more generous or more open definitions of what displacement is. So going back to the Organization for African Unity, the original Refugee Convention 1969, they adapted a big definition of just events that seriously disturbed public order. And that includes climate disasters, natural disasters, environmental degradation. So you can see that space opening up early. And then we have the Cartagena Declaration in Latin America, which also has a wide definition, seriously disturbing public order again in Africa States. The African Union Convention on Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa actually is a legally binding agreement that requires states to protect and assist internally displaced people displaced from natural and human made disasters, including climate change. So I think that's one of the most progressive agreements, legally binding agreements we have. And I think it leads to some optimism. I mean, it's not that states in the Global South aren't open to this. They are. You can see it right there. It's about getting states in the Global North to also recognize it. But that's a much larger issue.

[00:19:21.16] 

I mean, but you note, rightly, that the 51 Convention definition of refugee is pretty clearly does not include folks who are displaced by climate events or natural disasters. But there are some tenets and principles of international law that have or have been argued to be applicable to people in these situations.

[00:19:42.23] 

Right.

[00:19:43.05] 

Especially if something like a hurricane or drought threatens someone's safety or rights. Right. Are there not broader international law tenets that people have argued apply here?

[00:19:54.08] 

Absolutely. The most interesting and important space here is about the principle of non reformat. And that's the international norm that people should not be deported back to a place where they are at risk of torture and death. And I mean, it's very easy to argue that a disaster zone, a natural disaster zone, is a place that someone is at risk of death. Right. It's an open question yet if courts and states will interpret it that way. Okay. There have been a few actually really landmark decisions on this. Just last year, 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee found that New Zealand had violated the human rights of a man who was deported back to Pacific island after seeking asylum because of. Because going back to their island, they would have been affected by climate change and the rising sea level. And just in January this year, France actually had a court prevent the deportation of a Bangladeshi man with severe asthma because his poor health meant that returning him to Bangladesh could lead to premature death because of the dangerous levels of pollution. So those two examples give us, I think, some notes of optimism that the principle of non reformat could be interpreted more widely by courts to prevent deportation back to places affected by climate change.

[00:21:21.00] 

I guess this goes back to what you said about kind of being patient and recognizing that this is still a very young institutional framework and legal body and that really, if we're playing the long game, then things are changing and that there is a rising and growing more prominent global governance structure, global legal understanding that incorporates this. Right. I mean, you seem relatively optimistic about what, what the world looks like in 10, 20, 30 years. Is that fair?

[00:21:54.08] 

Yeah, I guess I would say it's just the beginning. Right. I wouldn't underestimate or overestimate the level of commitments. I think courts have a real role to play. Courts and activist lawyers pushing this non reformat principle. I wouldn't be optimistic about states signing up for non reformat as something they're going to commit to in new international agreements. In fact, we saw in the negotiations for the Global Compact for Migration that states were really skeptical of even referencing non reformat in it, not for climate change, but for all migrants, which is almost trying to step back from the international principle. So there are wins and losses across the whole negotiations. But yeah, I think you're putting it right. It is a long game and we can see some gradual progress here. I think we can also be optimistic. I mean, the Biden administration has rejoin the Paris agreement. We also saw last week on February 4, the new executive order helping to rebuild the US refugee resettlement program actually mentions climate change and migration in it, so there's room for optimism there as well.

[00:23:14.05] 

Well, on that note, I guess that's probably a good place to leave this conversation, but yeah, Nick, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate this chat.

[00:23:21.24] 

Thank you very much. I look forward to hearing the rest of your podcasts.

[00:23:27.17] 

Nick Micinski is a postdoctoral fellow at Laval University and a visiting researcher at Boston University's center for the Study of Europe. Starting in fall 2021, he'll be an assistant professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Maine, and I wish him luck there. He's also on Twitter @nickmicinski, and he's the author of two forthcoming books on migration. One is called UN Global Compacts Governing Migrants and Refugees, and the other is Delegating Responsibility: International Cooperation on Migration in the European Union. Both of those will be out in 2021. I really enjoyed my conversation with Nick, and it made me think think about global governance more generally. Over the last few years, there has been a lot of ambivalence about the role of international cooperation, especially with regard to migration. But it's clear that the groundwork exists for countries to get together and manage these issues collaboratively. But global governance takes time, and for better or for worse, sometimes it's hard to see how responses will develop until they're already here. If you haven't yet, please check out our full archive to find every episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration. Subscribe through your local podcast service of choice and please leave us a review and recommend the podcast to other people who might enjoy it.

[00:24:53.14] 

You can also find this and other MPI podcasts on our website. That's at migrationpolicy.org/podcasts or there are articles about climate change and migration available at migrationpolicy.org/climate. While you're there, sign up to get updates about everything MPI produces, including the bimonthly Migration Information Source newsletter, which I compile and highlight trends and policies in international migration. This podcast episode was produced by Yoseph Hamid and Kenia Guerrero, with assistance from Julia Yanoff, Lisa Dixon and Michelle Mittelstadt. The song you're hearing is called Touch by Patrick Patrikios. I'm Julian Hattem. I hope to see you next time.