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Research Seminar - Dr Simon Behrman, University of London

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Location: S2.12 Law School, Social Science Building

Why ‘Climate Refugees’?

Abstract: 'Amongst academics, practitioners, IGOs and NGOs concerned with climate change and forced migration, there is consensus that the coming years and decades will see large numbers of people moving across the globe as a result of the effects of the global rise in temperatures. There is also, as one would expect, a growing body of ideas about how to develop legal solutions to the current rights-gap faced by these migrants. While debate on this question is lively, it is characterised by the usual tenor of academic and policy discussions.

However, when it comes to identifying and labelling the people affected, the debate has been fractious, sometimes highly antagonistic. Terms such as ‘climate-induced migration’, ‘climate displacement’, ‘environmental refugee/migrant’, plus many more, have been deployed, and each one of them has fervent supporters and virulent detractors. Perhaps the most controversial term, though, is ‘climate refugee’, and in my own research and writing on the subject, I have chosen to use this nomenclature.

In this paper, I will explain why I think this label is correct for both legal and political reasons. I will also reflect on why this term – particularly the use of the word ‘refugee’ – has been so fiercely resisted by many in the field, and in particular by those most concerned with advocating for the rights of refugees in general. In essence, I will argue, too many of us have become trapped by a narrow and outdated legal definition of the refugee, driven largely by a defensive response to a generalised hostility towards migrants and refugees'

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