UNHCR Protection Manual - Related sources

Recent history bears witness to cross-border movements in the context of conflict and/or violence and disaster and/or the adverse effects of climate change (nexus dynamics). Countries and regions affected range from South Sudan to Syria, the Lake Chad basin and Horn of Africa, to Central America and Haiti. Despite this reality, the recognition that multiple factors underlie human movements and the enduring relevance of refugee law for providing international protection, research examining State practice on refugee law-based international protection in the specific context of nexus dynamics is limited. The present study begins to address our knowledge gap.

This study was commissioned by UNHCR to further develop its understanding of what protection in natural disaster means, as well as what response protection requires on behalf of affected populations, based on a review of operational experience to date. Further, the study attempts to provide insight on the institutional and operational measures that would be required for a protection agency such as UNHCR to provide better support to national governments in their protection response.

This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion on mobility and climate change by focusing on planned relocations of communities as an adaptation to climate change. Development actors, particularly the multilateral development banks, have many years of experience in relocating and resettling communities in order to implement development projects. This paper explores whether this experience may be relevant in considering relocations in the context of climate change.

This paper presents the background to and context of current discussions and approaches surrounding climate change-related human mobility across borders before identifying the normative gaps in the present international protection regime together with institutional and operational shortcomings. It argues that while a relationship between climate change, environmental events and displacement/migration exists, direct causalities are difficult to establish. Rather, such movements are triggered by multiple causes.

Cross-border displacement as a result of natural disasters and the effects of climate change has been identified as a normative gap in the international protection regime. This paper focuses on the relevance of complementary protection standards applicable at the universal, regional and national levels as a means to address such displacement. It provides an overview of current discussions on climate-related forced displacement and legal responses to it.