Environmental Justice for Climate Refugees

Francesca Rosignoli is a Junior Global Horizons fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) in Uppsala, Sweden.

"As anthropogenic climate change alters the environment and interacts with socioeconomic and political drivers, people in vulnerable contexts are fleeing. Despite climate migration is receiving increasing attention in legislative and policy spheres, knowledge and actions are still limited. In this sense, Rosignoli’s challenging book is necessary, especially for those wishing to broaden their understanding in key issues of this topic from a comprehensive environmental justice perspective."Beatriz Felipe Pérez, CICrA Justicia Ambiental, Spain

• Table of contents1 ‘Climate refugees’: Towards the construction of a new subjectivity1.1 Introduction 1.2 Methodology1.3 Historical knowledge of struggles1.3.1 The heterogeneity and multi-causality of climate-induced migration: empirical controversies1.3.2 History of the terminological disputes1.3.3 Competing for the future: The struggles of policymakers and the shift of nomenclature1.4. The insurrection of knowledges. Legal categories in motion1.5. Concluding remarks: Towards a decolonial environmental justice perspective 2. The unresolved legal dispute over the recognition of ‘Climate Refugees’2.1 International Refugee Law. The history of the 1951 Refugee Convention2.2 Regional Refugee Instruments: OAU Convention and Cartagena Declaration2.3 Towards the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration and beyond2.4 Limits and possibilities of the Refugee Law Concepts2.5 Looking for alternatives: The role of International human rights law and International environmental law2.6 Ioane Teitiota v. New Zealand. A legal tipping point? 3. Legal proposals and ongoing initiatives to fill the legal gap3.1 Three proposals for a new Universal Treaty3.2 Regional- and local-based proposals: regional responses, bilateral agreements, or enhanced domestic immigration laws? The case of Finland, Sweden, and Italy3.3 Beyond silos: connecting different international law regimes 3.4 Just a matter of extension?3.5 Combining existing legal framework with new multilateral treaty and complementary measures3.6 Nansen Initiative3.7 Peninsula Principles3.8 Migration with dignity4. The justice dilemma. ‘Climate Refugees’ as a case of Environmental (in)Justice4.1 What (Decolonial) Environmental Justice is and Why it matters for ‘Climate Refugees’4.2 The Threefold Injustice of ‘Climate Refugees’: Coloniality of Power, Knowledge, and Being4.2.1 The Coloniality of Power4.2.2 The Coloniality of Knowledge4.2.3 The Coloniality of Being4.3 Decolonizing the refugeehood 4.4 Concluding remarks5. Environmental justice for ‘Climate Refugees’: actors, instruments, and strategies5.1Why non-state actors can ‘solve’ the justice dilemma 5.2 A toolkit for non-state actors: collective capabilities5.3 Limitations and ways forward5.4 ConclusionAcknowledgements End matter Index