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Burkett, Maxine --- "International climate change law perspectives" [2017] ELECD 1351; in Mayer, Benoît; Crépeau, François (eds), "Research Handbook on Climate Change, Migration and the Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 190

Book Title: Research Handbook on Climate Change, Migration and the Law

Editor(s): Mayer, Benoît; Crépeau, François

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785366581

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: International climate change law perspectives

Author(s): Burkett, Maxine

Number of pages: 15

Abstract/Description:

The law on climate-related migration and displacement is notable for its paucity. Despite the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) early and repeated statements regarding climate-change impacts on human migration, once qualifying it as the ‘greatest single impact of climate change’, the last quarter century of climate-change law- and policy-making has not fostered robust governance of the emerging phenomenon. In fact, it was not until two decades after the IPCC’s initial statement that the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change addressed this kind of migration formally in its Cancún Decision. While most of the climate-induced migration and displacement forecasted will spur internal displacement, cross-border migration presents some of the most confounding challenges for migration and displacement management. This chapter presents the international law related to cross-border migration—and to a lesser extent internal displacement—as it currently stands.