World: The Slow onset effects of climate change and human rights protection for cross-border migrants (A/HRC/37/CRP.4)

Human Rights Council
Thirty-seventh session
26 February – 23 March 2018
Agenda items 2 and 3
Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General

Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development

Background and Acknowledgements

1. This study was undertaken on behalf of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in collaboration with the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD). The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights wishes to express its sincere thanks to Lauren Nishimura for her valuable contribution to the preparation of this study. In addition, special mention and thanks are due to our United Nations partners and the many experts that contributed to this study and participated in the expert meeting of 5 October 2017 at which it was first discussed.

Executive Summary

1. There is now widespread recognition that the impacts of climate change adversely affect the enjoyment of human rights. There is also increasing interest in the connection between climate change and human mobility, and the role human rights law plays in addressing this connection. Global data indicates that the number of people displaced by sudden onset climate and weather-related disasters, such as storms and cyclones, averaged 22.5 million persons per year since 2008.1 But such a figure does not account for those who move due to the slow onset effects of climate change, processes like sea level rise, salinization, drought, and desertification. These effects will combine with individual vulnerabilities and socio-economic, demographic, and political contexts to affect the ability of people to respond to stressors and enjoy human rights. This leads some people to move internally or across borders, and renders others unable to move away from affected areas.

2. This paper seeks to advance understanding of the connection between the slow onset adverse effects of climate change, human rights, and the cross-border movement of people in order to promote informed actions to protect the rights of those affected. The study was undertaken on behalf of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in collaboration with the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD).

3. Section I introduces the links between climate change, human rights, and human mobility. Section II discusses the implications slow onset events have for the human rights of affected persons. Section III analyses the international legal landscape for cross-border movement, discussing both gaps in legal protection and potential sources of state obligations. The challenge such movement poses are highlighted in Section IV through four case studies that reflect the complex interaction of context, vulnerability, and prior patterns of movement. Section V then discusses means to provide protection for those who move in the context of slow onset events, through legal obligations and policy responses. Finally, the study concludes by discussing current international and regional mechanisms that offer ways to work on climate change, human mobility, and human rights. It calls for further clarification and recognition of the relationship between these factors and highlights the opportunity to plan and prepare for events and impacts.

Slow onset events and implications for human rights

1. Slow onset events can negatively impact an array of internationally guaranteed human rights. This includes specific substantive human rights, like the rights to adequate food, water, health, and housing, as well as the rights to participation and information. Furthermore, while the impacts of slow onset events are indiscriminate, those already in vulnerable situations are at the greatest risk of suffering human rights harms as a result of their adverse effects. These risks are linked to human mobility in at least two general ways. First, risks to human rights in situ contribute to vulnerability, which in turn can act as a driver of migration or displacement. Second, there are specific impacts to the human rights of migrants and displaced persons that need to be addressed. This includes a lack of protection of their human rights at all stages in their journey, in particular in countries of transit and destination and in the context of access to entry and protection from return to harmful situations.

Gaps in protection for cross-border mobility

1. The mobility—and immobility—associated with slow onset effects is a global phenomenon that will test the limits of international law and cooperation. Current international law is able to meet some of these challenges and falls short in other areas, leaving gaps in rights protection for persons who cross borders in this context. The study identifies relevant areas of international law to establish where current law is able to provide protection for those who cross borders, and where it does not. Those who move will do so under a number of different conditions. For example, some people may move in the context of conflict or persecution that are triggered, at least in part, by the slow onset effects of climate change. These people may be entitled to protection under refugee law. Many, however, will move for reasons that do not accord them protection as refugees. There is also no affirmative international right to enter a country or stay, aside from being a refugee, and/or protections provided by international human rights law including the fundamental principle of non-refoulement. In the absence of such a right, barriers to entry and practices that put migrants at risk have emerged. This has resulted in border governance and immigration measures that include the use of violence, pushbacks, the erection of fences, and administrative sentences.
   

**Case studies and the challenges posed by slow onset events **

1. To illustrate some of the risks to human rights and challenges posed by slow onset events, the study provides concrete examples of environmental and climate change and human mobility in four regions: (1) South Asia; (2) Pacific Island States; (3) the Sahel; and (4) Central America. Each examines the interaction of climate events with high poverty levels, food insecurity, and low adaptive capacity. The resulting impacts on people and their employment, livelihoods, and access to natural resources along with other contextual stressors can tip the balance towards migration. The case studies also highlight that climate change poses a progressive threat to human rights. In regions where malnutrition is already widespread, some individuals and groups are particularly vulnerable, and mobility is a common response to changing conditions.

2. Each region also exemplifies different aspects of the challenges posed by slow onset events. South Asia is highly vulnerable to environmental change, and the well-established seasonal migration patterns in certain places are at risk of being upended by climate change. The Sahel shows the impact of climate change on important shared resources. Resource scarcity has been linked to climate change, conflict, and development projects in the region, all ofwhich can lead to migration and displacement. For some Pacific Island States, international migration and planned relocation are often raised as potential responses to sea level rise and loss of territory, although such movement tends to be viewed as a last resort. In Central America, slow onset processes may contribute to international movement in a region that already sees people crossing borders to escape socio-economic deprivation, gang violence and disasters caused by natural hazards.

Legal obligations and policy solutions

1. Approaches that better anticipate human mobility in response to slow-onset events and that proactively seek to protect rights before, during, and after movement are possible. They also provide a means to begin to ensure the human rights of all cross-border migrants. Protection can be provided through international legal obligations and policy guidance that take a human rights-based approach. States have obligations to respect, protect, and fulfil the human rights of all persons. In the context of climate change, this translates into a need for States to undertake measures to mitigate climate change and prevent its negative impacts on human rights; to ensure all persons have the capacity and means to adapt; and to ensure accountability and an effective remedy for harms caused by climate change.

2. The preventive role a human rights-based approach plays can also shift the focus to the risks slow onset events pose to human rights, enabling States to take action before severe harm occurs and ensure meaningful participation of those affected by climate change. Such an approach strengthens arguments for proactive measures, to prevent displacement by enabling people to stay in conditions under which their human rights are respected, to allow for migration within conditions that protect human rights as a means of adaptation, or to facilitate human rights responsive planned relocation. Furthermore, climate change agreements broadly require States to prevent or mitigate the harm from climate change, and to take action on adaptation. Human rights law must be considered in the interpretation of these obligations and integrated into the planning and implementation of climate change action. International cooperation and assistance are also critical in this context, both as a matter of state obligation and necessity to address the global challenges created by climate change and related human mobility.