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The Legal Challenges of Offering Protection to Climate Refugees in Africa

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Governance, Human Rights, and Political Transformation in Africa

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Abstract

The impacts of climate change are already causing displacement, as drought and rising sea levels make millions of people’s homes uninhabitable. Despite the increasing populations of climate-induced refugees within and across borders in Africa, there is no international legal protection for them. This chapter discusses the African refugee protection regime to identify the legal gaps in affording protection to climate refugees and how these gaps can be remedied. It argues for the expansive interpretation of ‘events seriously disturbing public order’ as provided in article 1(2) of the 1969 Convention governing specific aspects of refugee problems in Africa to cover climatic events such as flooding, famine, and droughts in order to plug in the legal gaps in the existing regime.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Climate change is defined as ‘a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to other natural climate variability that has been observed over comparable time periods’, see Article 1(2) UNFCCC. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has since expanded this definition as ‘any change of climate over time as a result of human activity or due to natural variability.’ See IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 30.

  2. 2.

    Ottmar Edenhofer et al., Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change, Working Group III Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

  3. 3.

    Christopher B. Field et al., eds., Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation: Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (SREX Report) (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 16; Michael Addaney, Elsabé Boshoff, and Michael Gyan Nyarko, “Protection of Environmental Assets in Urban Africa: Regional and Sub-regional Human Rights and Practical Environmental Protection Mechanisms,” Australian Journal of Human Rights 24, no. 2 (2018): 182–200, https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238x.2018.1480235.

  4. 4.

    John H. Knox, “Report of the Independent Expert on the Issue of Human Rights Obligations Relating to the Enjoyment of a Safe, Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment,” A/HRC/22/43, 24 December 24, 2012; IPCC (2018). An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C above Pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty: Summary for Policymakers (Geneva: IPCC, 2018), retrieved from http://ipcc.ch/report/sr15/.

  5. 5.

    The World Health Organization, Climate Change and Infectious Diseases (2003), 16–17, https://www.who.int/globalchange/environment/en/chapter6.pdf.

  6. 6.

    Katie McQue, “Did Deforestation Cause the Ebola Outbreak,” New Internationalist, April 10, 2018, https://newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2018/04/10/deforestation-ebola-outbreak.

  7. 7.

    Jesús Olivero et al., “Recent Loss of Closed Forests Is Associated with Ebola Virus Disease Outbreaks,” Scientific Reports 7, no. 14291 (2017): 1–7.

  8. 8.

    Michael Addaney, Elsabé Boshoff, and Bamisaye Oyetola, “The Climate Change and Human Rights Nexus in African,” Amsterdam Law Forum 9, no. 3 (2017): 5–28; Stefano M. Torelli. “Climate-Driven Migration in Africa,” European Council of Foreign Relations, December 20, 2017. https://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_climate_driven_migration_in_africa.

  9. 9.

    Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “The Magnitude of the Problem,” http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5318e/x5318e02.htm.

  10. 10.

    “Desertification: The People Whose Land Is Turning to Dust,” BBC News, November 2, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34790661. IPBES Secretariat, “Media Release: Worsening Worldwide Land Degradation Now ‘Critical’, Undermining Well-Being of 3.2 Billion People,” March 23, 2018, https://www.ipbes.net/news/media-release-worsening-worldwide-land-degradation-now-%E2%80%98critical%E2%80%99-undermining-well-being-32.

  11. 11.

    FAO, “The Magnitude of the Problem.”

  12. 12.

    The term ‘refugee’ offers legal protection based on a defined conceptualization under the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention. However, there is no agreement over the definition and the legal treatment of persons forcibly displaced by climate change. Currently, they are treated as economic migrants, resulting in barriers to entering crossing international borders legally. See Torelli, “Climate-Driven Migration in Africa.”

  13. 13.

    See Environmental Justice Foundation, “Protecting Climate Refugees: Securing International Protection for Climate Refugees,” https://ejfoundation.org/what-we-do/climate/protecting-climate-refugees.

  14. 14.

    Graeme Hugo, “Climate Change—Induced Mobility and the Existing Migration Regime in Asia and the Pacific,” in Climate Change and Displacement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Jane McAdam (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2010), 13.

  15. 15.

    Jane McAdam, Climate Change, Forced Migration, and International Law (New York: Oxford University Press 2012), 1–2.

  16. 16.

    Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted July 28, 1951, entered into force April 22, 1954) 189 U.N.T.S. 137, Art 1A(2).

  17. 17.

    Organization of African Unity (now African Union) Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa (adopted 10 September 1969, entered into force June 20, 1974) 1001 U.N.T.S. 45, Art 1(2).

  18. 18.

    Kelsey Moe, “Climate Change Refugees: Regional Agreements Can Better Fill the Gap in Legal Protection,” Hastings Environmental Law Journal Blog Post, January 13, 2018, http://sites.uchastings.edu/helj/2018/01/13/climate-change-refugees-regional-agreements-can-better-fill-the-gap-in-legal-protection/.

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    Michael Addaney, “A Step Forward in the Protection of Urban Refugees: The Legal Protection of the Rights of Urban Refugees in Uganda,” African Human Rights Law Journal 17, no. 1 (2017): 218–243.

  21. 21.

    James C. Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees Under International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 75.

  22. 22.

    Elizabeth Ferris and Jonas Bergmann, “Soft Law, Migration and Climate Change Governance,” Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 8, no. 1 (2017): 6–29; Benoit Mayer, “Climate Change and International Law in the Grim Days,” European Journal of International Law 24, no. 3 (2013): 949; Frank Biermann and Ingrid Boas, “Preparing for a Warmer World: Towards a Global Governance System to Protect Climate Refugees,” Global Environmental Politics 10, no. 1 (2010): 60–88.

  23. 23.

    Universal Declaration, art. 14(1) and (2).

  24. 24.

    Universal Declaration, art. 13(2).

  25. 25.

    International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), December 19, 1966, 999 UNTS 14668, art. 12(2).

  26. 26.

    Ibid., art. 12(3).

  27. 27.

    Benoît Mayer, “The International Legal Challenges of Climate-Induced Migration: Proposal for an International Legal Framework,” Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 22, no. 3 (2011): 357.

  28. 28.

    The 1967 Protocol removes the geographic and temporal limitations included in the 1951 Convention, making it a truly universal and inclusive system of protection for those fleeing persecution. The 1967 Protocol also incorporates all the substantive provisions of the 1951 Convention, so while many States have chosen to ratify both instruments it is actually necessary to ratify only the 1967 Protocol.

  29. 29.

    1951 Refugee Convention, at art. 1.

  30. 30.

    António Guterres, UN Refugee Agency, 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Its 1967 Protocol (2011), 1.

  31. 31.

    Efrat Arbel, Catherine Dauvergne, and Jenni Millbank, eds., Gender in Refugee Law: From the Margins to the Centre (London and New York: Routledge, 2014).

  32. 32.

    Alex Aleinikoff, “Protected Characteristics and Social Perceptions: An Analysis of the Meaning of ‘Membership of a Particular Social Group,’” in Refugee Protection in International Law: UNHCR’s Global Consultations on International Protection, ed. Erika Feller, Volker Türk, and Frances Nicholson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 263.

  33. 33.

    Heather Anderson, Tess Burton, David Hodgkinson, and Lucy Young, “The Hour When the Ship Comes In: A Convention for Persons Displaced by Climate Change,” Monash University Law Review 36, no. 1 (2010): 76.

  34. 34.

    Angela Williams, “Turning the Tide: Recognizing Climate Change in International Law,” Law and Policy 30, no. 4 (2008): 509.

  35. 35.

    Jeanhee Hong, “Refugees of the 21st Century: Environmental Injustice,” Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy 10, no. 2 (2001): 331.

  36. 36.

    UNHCR, Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status Under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (Geneva: UNHCR, 1979), 39.

  37. 37.

    Mayer, “The International Legal Challenges of Climate-Induced Migration,” 357.

  38. 38.

    Hong, “Refugees of the 21st Century,” 331.

  39. 39.

    Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), “Climate Change, Migration and Displacement: Who Will Be Affected?” (2008) 4, http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2008/smsn/igo/022.pdf.

  40. 40.

    UNHCR, Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status, 39.

  41. 41.

    Mayer, “The International Legal Challenges of Climate-Induced Migration,” 357.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    Jessica B. Cooper, “Environmental Refugees: Meeting the Requirements of the Refugee Definition,” New York University Environmental Law Journal 6 (1998): 502.

  44. 44.

    Kara K. Moberg, “Extending Refugee Definitions to Cover Environmentally Displaced Persons Displaces Necessary Protection,” Iowa Law Review 94 (2009): 1121.

  45. 45.

    Kate Jastram, “Warm World, Cold Reception: Climate Change, National Security and Forced Migration,” Vermont Journal of Environmental Law 15, no. 4 (2014): 751–765.

  46. 46.

    Mayer, “The International Legal Challenges of Climate-Induced Migration,” 357.

  47. 47.

    Jastram, “Warm World, Cold Reception,” 751.

  48. 48.

    Rina Kuusipalo, “Exiled by Emissions—Climate Change Related Displacement and Migration in International Law: Gaps in Global Governance and the Role of the UN Climate Convention,” Vermont Journal of Environmental Law 18, no. 4. (2017): 615–647.

  49. 49.

    Status of Ratification of the Convention of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/status_of_ratification/items/2631.php.

  50. 50.

    Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, Report of the Conference of the Parties on Its Sixteenth Session, 14, 14(f), UN Doc. FCCC/CP/2010/7/Add.1 March 15, 2011, https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2010/cop16/eng/07a01.pdf.

  51. 51.

    Walter Kälin, “From the Nansen Principles to the Nansen Initiative,” Forced Migration Review 41 (2012): 49.

  52. 52.

    Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, Report of the Conference of the Parties on Its Eighteenth Session, 7(a)(iv), U.N. Doc. FCCC/CP/2012/8/Add.1, February 28, 2013, http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2012/cop18/eng/08a01.pdf.

  53. 53.

    Paris Agreement on Climate Change, 12 December 2015, T.I.A.S. No. 16-1104, art. 50.

  54. 54.

    Tyler Giannini and Bonnie Docherty, “Confronting a Rise Tide: A Proposal for a Convention of Climate Change Refugees,” Harvard Environmental Law Review 33 (2009): 349.

  55. 55.

    Ibid.

  56. 56.

    Williams, “Turning the Tide,” 502.

  57. 57.

    Ibid.

  58. 58.

    Ibid.

  59. 59.

    Jane McAdam, “Swimming Against the Tide: Why a Climate Change Displacement Treaty Is Not the Answer,” International Journal of Refugee Law 23, no. 1 (2011): 2–27.

  60. 60.

    Pierre-Marie Dupuy and Jorge E. Vinuales, International Environmental Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 369.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., 370.

  62. 62.

    Ademola Oluborode Jegede, “Indigenous Peoples, Climate Migration and International Human Rights Law in Africa, with Reflections on the Relevance of the Kampala Convention,” in Research Handbook on Climate Change, Migration and the Law, ed. Benoît Mayer and François Crépeau (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017), 169–189.

  63. 63.

    Ibid.

  64. 64.

    Addaney, Boshoff, and Olutola, “The Climate Change and Human Rights Nexus in Africa,” 5.

  65. 65.

    McAdam, Climate Change, Forced Migration, and International Law, 267.

  66. 66.

    African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, June 27, 1981, OAU Doc. CAB/LEG/67/3 rev. 5.

  67. 67.

    Jegede, “Indigenous Peoples, Climate Migration and International Human Rights Law in Africa,” 169.

  68. 68.

    1969 OAU Convention, art. 2(1).

  69. 69.

    1969 OAU Convention, art. 2(2).

  70. 70.

    Addaney, “The Legal Protection of the Rights of Urban Refugees in Uganda,” 218.

  71. 71.

    R.K. Medard, Rwelamira, “Two Decades of the Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa,” International Journal of Refugee Law 1, no. 4 (1989): 557.

  72. 72.

    George Okoth-Obbo, “Thirty Years On: A Legal Review of the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa,” Refugee Survey Quarterly 20, no. 1 (2001): 79.

  73. 73.

    Mayer, “The International Legal Challenges of Climate-Induced Migration,” 357.

  74. 74.

    1951 Convention, art. 1A provides: The term “refugee” shall apply to any person who: … (2) who owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or owing to such fear is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country or who not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events is unable or owing to such fear is unwilling to return to it.

  75. 75.

    1969 OAU Convention, art. I(1).

  76. 76.

    1969 OAU Convention, art. 1(2).

  77. 77.

    “Brazil Declaration: A Framework for Cooperation and Regional Solidarity to Strengthen the International Protection of Refugees, Displaced and Stateless Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean,” December 3, 2014, http://www.acnur.org/t3/fileadmin/scripts/doc.php?file=t3/fileadmin/Documentos/BDL/2014/9865.

  78. 78.

    Organization of American States, “Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, Colloquium on the International Protection of Refugees in Central America, Mexico and Panama,” November 22, 1984.

  79. 79.

    Elizabeth Ferris and Jonas Bergmann, “Soft Law, Migration and Climate Change Governance,” Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 8, no. 1 (2017): 6–29.

  80. 80.

    EO Awuku, “Refugee Movements in Africa and the OAU Convention on Refugees,” Journal of African Law 39 (1995): 81; UNHCR, Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme, Note on International Protection, 45th Session, UN Doc. A/AC.96/830, September 7, 1994, at para. 32.

  81. 81.

    Ibid., Part II.C.

  82. 82.

    Paul Weis, “The Convention of the Organisation of African Unity Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa,” Revue des droits de l’homme 3 (1970): 455.

  83. 83.

    Ruma Mandal, “Protection Mechanisms Outside of the 1951 Convention (‘Complementary Protection’), Legal and Protection Policy Research Series” (Geneva: UNHCR Department of Internal Protection, 2005), 13, http://www.unhcr.org/435df0aa2.pdf.

  84. 84.

    African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, June 27, 1981, OAU Doc. CAB/LEG/67/3 rev. 5 (African Charter).

  85. 85.

    Jegede, op. cit., note 53.

  86. 86.

    African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention), October 23, 2009, 7796-treaty-0039, article 1(k).

  87. 87.

    Jegede, “Indigenous Peoples, Climate Migration and International Human Rights Law in Africa,” 169.

  88. 88.

    Article 1(2) provides that the term “refugee” shall also apply to every person who, owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part [or] the whole of his country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his country of origin or nationality.

  89. 89.

    Constitutive Act of the African Union, Adopted on November 7, 2000 and entered into force on May 26, 2001, https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/32020-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf.

  90. 90.

    Ibid., at art. 3(a).

  91. 91.

    Addaney, “The Legal Protection of the Rights of Urban Refugees in Uganda,” 218.

  92. 92.

    Ulrike Grote and Koko Warner, “Environmental Change and Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa,” International Journal of Global Warming 2, no. 1 (2010): 36; Jamila Abdullahi et al., Rural–Urban Migration of the Nigerian Work Populace and Climate Change Effects on Food Supply: A Case Study of Kaduna City in Northern Nigeria, June 28–30, 2009, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTURBANDEVELOPMENT/Resources/336387-1256566800920/6505269-1268260567624/Abdullahi.pdf.

  93. 93.

    Gerhard Hoffstaedter, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Urban Refugees in a Global Context,” in Urban Refugees: Challenges in Protection, Services and Policy, ed. Koichi Koizumi and Gerhard Hoffstaedter (New York and London: Routledge, 2016), 1–10.

  94. 94.

    Michael Addaney, “Toward Promoting Protection: Refugee Protection and Local Integration in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Studia Migracyjne – Przegląd Polonijny 165, no. 3 (2017): 71–87.

  95. 95.

    Anita Fábos and Gaime Kibreab, “Urban Refugees: Introduction,” Refuge 24, no. 1 (2007): 3–8.

  96. 96.

    UN Secretary-General, Climate Change and Its Possible Security Implications: Report of the Secretary-General, 54, UN Doc. A/64/350, September 11, 2009, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4ad5e6380.pdf.

  97. 97.

    Aurélie Sgro, Towards Recognition of Environmental Refugees by the European Union, ASYLON(S) (2008) 6, http://wwwreseau-terra.eu/article844html.

  98. 98.

    Vikram Odedra Kolmannskog, Norwegian Refugee Council, Future Floods of Refugees: A Comment on Climate Change, Conflict and Forced Migration (2008), 19–21, http://www.nrc.no/arch/_img/9268480.pdf.

  99. 99.

    Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Climate Change as a Security Risk (Berlin: German Advisory Council on Global Change, 2008), 204–207, http://www.wbgu.de/wbgu_jg2007_engl.pdf.

  100. 100.

    1969 OAU Convention, art. 1(2).

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  1. Research Institute of Environmental Law, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Michael Addaney

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  1. Research Institute of Environmental Law, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Michael Addaney

  2. Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Michael Gyan Nyarko

  3. African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Banjul, The Gambia

    Elsabé Boshoff

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Addaney, M. (2020). The Legal Challenges of Offering Protection to Climate Refugees in Africa. In: Addaney, M., Nyarko, M.G., Boshoff, E. (eds) Governance, Human Rights, and Political Transformation in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27049-0_13

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