Climate Migration: Critical Perspectives for Law, Policy, and Research

This book investigates the epistemological and ethical challenges faced by studies exploring the relations between climate change and human migration. At the heart of the contemporary preoccupation with climate change is a concern for its societal impacts. Among these, its presumed effect on human migration is perhaps the most politically resonant, regardless of whether that politics is oriented towards human or national security.

There is, however, a problem: research on the causal link between climate change and migration has shown it to be a highly equivocal one. By extension, it remains unclear what - if any - response is required from law and policy.

Carefully structured to guide the reader through the issue of ’climate migration’ in a logical and rigorous manner, this book is the first to bring together key critiques, caveats, and cautions in order to systematically examine the challenges facing law, policy, and research on the topic.

At a time in which both the effects of climate change and the causes of migration are of great public and political interest, and in which these interests are often fraught with sentiment and freighted with politics, the book brings dispassionately critical perspectives to bear on a topic that desperately needs it.

Calum Nicholson is Tutor and Lecturer at the Institute of Continuing Education, University of Cambridge, UK.
Benoit Mayer is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.