Contextualizing Environmental Migration: the gap between the legal nature of refuge and environment during the age of global warming and natural catastrophes

Abstract

Migration has attracted increasing attention and it has been a source of concern from academia to politics for the past couple of decades. While mankind faces its biggest migration crisis since World War II, many discussions arise from the complex and intricate dynamics of refuge, considering that the object of study, both human and mobile, has to flee a given area of residence in order for one to protect him or herself from war, persecution and serious violations of human rights. Given the organicity of the theme, and as encompassing as the current concept of refugee might be, there is a special contingent category of migrants that is not yet encompassed by the current notion of who is eligible for refugee status: those who flee environmental catastrophes. On the verge of multiple natural events – such as the case of Haiti and the 2010 earthquake - and some man-made disasters – such as the Samarco dam collapse in Brazil – how to legally address individuals fleeing naturally devastated areas, facing the gap between the legal nature of the status of refugees in international law and the legal nature of environment, in a century named “The Age of Global Warming”? Considering the perspective on climate change for the coming decades, the reshaping of the concept of refugee status is of vital importance, given the increasing population of environmentally displaced persons - an alarming number that has not yet been addressed by the current legal framework. For the present study, we opted for the deductive-analytic research method, using bibliographic research as technique.

Keywords

• refugees
• migration
• environment
• international law
• environmental law.