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Environmental and Disaster
Displacement Policy
Organisational Cooperation between
the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees and the International
Organisation for Migration
Silvana Lakeman
Environmental and Disaster Displacement Policy
Silvana Lakeman
Environmental and
Disaster Displacement
Policy
Organisational Cooperation between the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees and the International
Organisation for Migration
Silvana Lakeman
Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences
University of Bremen
Bremen, Germany
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
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Results incorporated in this standard have received funding from the
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under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 713639.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all who provided feedback throughout the process of
putting together this book, and especially those who participated in inter-
views. You have both provided valuable insights and made the research
process highly enjoyable!
vii
Contents
ix
x Contents
Index249
Abbreviations
xi
xii Abbreviations
xiii
CHAPTER 1
International Organisations
and the Climate-Migration Nexus
During my time working on this book, the world has been gripped by a
global pandemic. Political and media attention are naturally fixated on
scientific, social and economic developments in response to Covid-19, and
momentum regarding climate change—arguably the largest threat to
humanity in the twenty-first century—has been placed on the backburner.
Despite this, few issues have received as much debate on the global stage
as migration and climate change in recent decades, and it is my belief that
in the coming years, these issues will dominate once more. Oftentimes,
climate change and migration overlap in complex and messy ways. Recent
reporting supports the argument that climate change is contributing to an
increase in both the frequency and the intensity of slow and sudden-onset
climatic events, which are major drivers of human displacement (UNDRR/
CRED, 2020). Natural hazards, such as tropical cyclones, flooding,
desertification, drought and bushfires, are increasingly unsettling tens of
millions of people worldwide, leading to natural disasters. Further, those
in the poorest, most underdeveloped parts of the world are disproportion-
ately affected by these phenomena. In fact, according to the Internal
Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), 2018 saw almost 17.2 million
individuals newly displaced internally due to climate-related disasters,
mostly in developing countries (IDMC, 2019a). Now more than ever,
inter-governmental and international organisations (IGOs and IOs) with
an agenda to protect displaced populations have an important role to play
have the potential to equate to greater competition in the long run at the
international organisational level.
In many ways, the proliferating threat of climate change (and its ability
to worsen or exacerbate conflict and hazards which may result in natural
disasters and displacement) is the epitome of the modern crisis. This is
especially true in the sense that climate change does not respect borders or
confine itself to one policy area (Boin & Lagadec, 2000, p. 185). Given
the position of international organisations at the frontline for cross-
boundary issues, it is perhaps unsurprising that climate change threatens
to undermine the work of a vast variety of IOs across a range of policy
spheres. Those studying crisis management would suggest it is not climate
change or ensuing challenges that cause issues, but rather the systems—
including organisations—we have in place, and their inability to adapt and
uphold their legitimacy in the face of adversity (Dayton et al., 2004,
p. 168). Despite this challenge, crises can also be powerful instigators for
positive organisational change and learning opportunities for organisa-
tions to grow and adapt to new realities (Wang, 2008, p. 427).
while minimalists (such as Black, 2001, and Massey et al., 2010) have
emphasised ‘the complexity of the interaction between environmental and
social systems’, noting that environmental change is just one of many
complex factors that may drive human movement (Morrisey, 2012, p. 38).
When it comes to definitions, maximalists have employed the term ‘envi-
ronmental refugee’, with the relatively few supporters of the creation of
such a definition arguing that the term was first used by a UN body (the
UN Environmental Programme) in a 1985 report, and that its previous
use at the UN provides a strong basis for its future use at the UNHCR in
particular (El-Hinnawi, 1985).
In more recent years, there has been a notable softening of rhetoric
between these two camps of thought. Bettini (2014, p. 185) has high-
lighted that nowadays, ‘nobody objects to the idea that climate change
will have a large influence on mobility’. An increasingly popular way to
approach the issue is somewhere in the middle; Cantor (2021, pp. 270–271)
has pointed to a consensus that even as one of potentially many overlap-
ping factors, environmental change ‘may produce distinct forms of mobil-
ity, as in circumstances of sudden or extreme environmental change’.
Minimalists have even softened on the use of the term ‘environmental
refugee’ (Morrisey, 2012, p. 38), with François Gemenne admitting that
despite associated legal issues, there may be benefits to using it—forgoing
the term ‘is also, in a way, forgoing the idea that climate change is a form
of persecution against the most vulnerable and that climate-induced
migration is a very political matter, rather than an environmental one’
(Gemenne, 2015, p. 71).
Perspectives on the issue continue to shift and, as environmental change
becomes an increasingly important factor in human mobility, often beyond
the desks of scholars. In 2006, the Maldives petitioned for an extension of
the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees to include
the term ‘environmental refugees’, which was rejected (McAdam, 2011a,
p. 103). Since then, further solutions at the international level have been
discussed and proposed, such as legal concepts including ‘deterritorialised’
states or ‘nations ex-situ’ for those left without territory due to rising sea
levels (Burkett, 2013; Rayfuse, 2010). However, such proposals lack a
comprehensive analysis of previous international organisational responses
to specific cases of displacement, both short and long term. Some have
highlighted existing bilateral agreements between states that may prevent
more permanent migration as a solution, such as the Recognised Seasonal
Employer scheme in New Zealand (Shawn & Gemenne, 2011); however,
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 9
a consideration of how directly relevant IOs may play a future role in such
schemes remains largely underdeveloped. Regarding actual attempts to
claim asylum or refugee status, a lack of definitional expansion has defini-
tively inhibited individuals seeking safety from environmental threat, as in
the popularised case of a Kiribati national seeking refuge in New Zealand
due to the effects of climate change (Library of Congress, 2016). The case
of Ioane Teitiota, who made the claim in 2013, was more recently rejected
by the United Nations, which found that Teitiota was not in immediate
danger. However, the case has set a precedent for the future of legal
debates in this area (BBC News, 2020). Although it remains to be seen
what effect this landmark ruling will have for the future management of
environmental displacement, future discussions should at least consider
the role of UNHCR and IOM, given their positioning as prominent refu-
gee and migration IOs. Indeed, UNHCR and legal scholars have more
recently further clarified available legal frameworks for cross-border pro-
tection in the context of climate change and disasters—at least in part
motivated by precedent set by the Teitiota case (UN High Commissioner
for Refugees, 2020a). While there have been international attempts involv-
ing IOM and UNHCR to address cross-border displacement due to cli-
mate change, such as the Nansen Initiative and Platform on Disaster
Displacement (McAdam, 2016), gaps remain regarding a critical analysis
of IO involvement and influence in such projects.
Despite reporting in recent years that a majority of human displace-
ment due to environmental and disaster-related causes have been (and will
continue to be) internal (IDMC, 2019b), internal displacement as a result
of environmental stressors has not received the same academic and policy
attention as cross-border displacement. Nor has the involvement of
UNHCR and IOM—despite definitive proof regarding their involvement
in disaster scenarios. This could be because many perceive the existence of
the 1998 UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement to be a suffi-
cient legal and normative protection framework (Koser, 2011). While the
Guiding Principles state that national authorities are primarily responsible
for protection and humanitarian assistance in cases of internal displace-
ment, IOs do ‘have the right to offer their services in support of the inter-
nally displaced’, and states should not see this offer as an interference or
an unfriendly act (UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 1998). Further,
when national authorities are simply ill-equipped (or potentially politically
unwilling) to handle the enormity of a disaster or environmental degrada-
tion that may result in displacement, international organisations may play
10 S. LAKEMAN
Central African Republic (Darcy, 2016; Hanley et al., 2014; Steets et al.,
2010; Telford et al., 2006). Although these evaluations indicate willing-
ness to learn, that most are self-conducted or published by IOs, or out-
sourced to consultants with a potential interest in future employment
opportunities with organisations, leaves a gap that this book may begin to
fill as an independent study.
Although work has been done over the years on the complementariness
of (Sampson, 2004) and consultative relationships between (Gunter,
1977) IOs, much academic criticism of international organisational
response has stemmed from topical concerns, such as the expansive work
done on IO engagement in the health sector in post-disaster contexts.
Here, work has been done in relation to psychosocial interventions when
national capacities are overwhelmed (Ganesan, 2009), in relation to the
bureaucratic structures limiting collaboration in humanitarian contexts
(Parmar et al., 2007) as well as information sharing and coordination
(Burkle & Hayden, 2001), to name a few examples. Some work has also
been carried out from the perspective of UN member states regarding
their interest in managing IOs (De Koster & Holvoet, 2012), and on the
use of UN collaboration to exert influence at the World Bank (Das, 2009).
However, as yet, little work has been done in any significant detail to con-
textualise and consider how or why organisations have become involved in
the way that they have, based on previous experiences and their own lim-
ited capacities at any given point in time. Indeed, little work has been done
beyond evaluations of specific disasters to consider organisational involve-
ment in the overall topic of environmental and disaster response at all.
Granted, the EACH-FOR (Environmental Change and Forced Scenarios)
project (CORDIS, European Commission, 2012) investigated patterns of
environmental migration relevant to questions of politics. However, dis-
cussion of international governance was largely limited to regional adapta-
tion and did not make specific demands of international organisations
such as UNHCR or IOM. Likewise, comprehensive work on climate
change and migration by Piguet et al. (2011) has placed little emphasis on
questioning whether international organisations have adapted or devel-
oped in response to, and in relation to one another on, this issue.
There has also been a rejection of the idea to create a new agency to
lead in this issue area—or at least few developments as such (McAdam,
2011b; McNamara & Gibson, 2009), despite limited suggestions to cre-
ate one in earlier years (Biermann & Boas, 2010; Docherty & Giannini,
2009; Okeowo, 2013). The rationale behind this rejection is that we
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 15
already have a variety of IOs (primarily bodies within the UN) which have
decades upon decades of experience in specific fields which inadvertently
overlap with the issue area—namely, UNHCR and IOM. So long as these
IOs are active and involve themselves on matters of environmental and
disaster displacement (and we expect them to) insufficient consideration
of these IOs is to the detriment of academics, policymakers and IOs them-
selves. Moreover, unbiased research on the involvement of IOs in this
issue area is a worthwhile venture in and of itself, particularly as experts
have recognised the unique (and very real) influence of research on poli-
cymaking when it comes to all matters environmental migration. Gemenne
and Rosenow-Williams (2016, p. 238) have pointed to the fact that this
particular research area is rather unique, in that it brings policymakers and
researchers together in a plethora of settings—thus increasing the poten-
tial for developments between research and policy.
What does all of this mean for organisations working to respond to
disasters and with those displaced by such events? Convergence, as intro-
duced earlier, is witnessed at the humanitarian response level as well. While
for decades, IOs have traditionally taken a purely response-driven and
emergency aid-based approach to disaster scenarios, an increase in the
number and severity of disasters due to global factors such as climate
change has rendered this approach increasingly unsustainable for both
affected populations and IOs alike (Hilhorst, 2018). Instead, there has
been a shift towards humanitarian action focused on improving the ongo-
ing situation of vulnerable and affected populations, so as to reduce the
effects or likelihood of disaster from occurring in the first place (Marin &
Naess, 2017). IOs are therefore shifting from traditional conceptions of
humanitarian response to what has been dubbed ‘new’ humanitarianism;
focused on broader resilience, disaster risk reduction and sustainable
development measures. The 2005 Humanitarian Reform Process at the
UN, resulting in the IASC Cluster Approach for emergency response, is
representative of a clear shift from response driven to preventative human-
itarian response (Marin & Naess, 2017). However, given that internal dis-
placement due to disaster is often protracted, such efforts have invariably
meant that IOs are increasingly engaged over longer periods of time on
longer-term solutions to problems not originally intended as theirs to
solve. In response to this shift, Hilhorst (2018, p. 6) has raised a valid
question to keep in mind: ‘What does the new paradigm mean for the
identity and legitimacy of humanitarian agencies?’
16 S. LAKEMAN
A Multi-dimensional Approach
to Agency Involvement
and its Cluster Approach for humanitarian response, may prescribe what
appropriate action should be for UNHCR and IOM. However, this is not
akin to presuming rules always dictate agency behaviour or decision-
making, nor is following a logic of appropriateness a panacea for morality
or efficiency—those carrying out ethnic cleansing, for example, have fol-
lowed rules seen as ‘natural, rightful, expected and legitimate’ (March &
Olsen, 2011, pp. 2–3).
March and Olsen also hypothesise that it should be easier to follow a
logic of consequences to justify decisions, as self-interpreting conduct as
‘appropriate’ (or not) seems a more complicated exercise than simply
rationalising behaviour and decisions in terms of one interest over another
(March & Olsen, 2011, p. 17). When it comes to switching logics of
behaviour entirely, a logic of consequences may replace a logic of appro-
priateness if following the rules no longer seems satisfactory—especially
regarding new targets and goals that do not easily fit within the status quo
of expected responsibility or familiar activities. Inversely, a logic of appro-
priateness should dominate when the actor or organisation’s environment
is fairly stable, patterns of action and the actors themselves are well estab-
lished, and memories of behaviour are well institutionalised (March &
Olsen, 2011, p. 17). This understanding could mean multiple things for
IOM and UNHCR. For one, UNHCR and IOM have a relatively shared
history, and via institutions such as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee
and the Cluster Approach (under the auspices of the UN more generally)
they should also have frequent interaction and shared experiences on some
level. However, environmental disasters are hardly a picture of stability,
and despite efforts to stabilise organisational involvement, there will always
remain an element of uncertainty—particularly regarding resource avail-
ability and individual country situations. It is therefore not clear from an
analysis of March and Olsen’s picture of logics where the IOM and
UNHCR would fall.
Classifying IOs in one way or another to understand why they may
behave as they do is not a new concept; multiple scholars have directly or
indirectly addressed the topic in a variety of ways. For example, Cox et al.
(1973) systematise agencies based upon their histories, institutional frame-
work, and stated functions, whilst Scott and Davis (2006) have under-
taken a treatment of IOs as either rational, natural or open systems. Ness
and Brechin (1988) have identified that aspects of structure, technology,
goals and environment are determinants for organisational performance,
considering the study of, and sociology of, organisations together. Lastly,
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 23
entities with their own detailed historical paths of involvement that war-
rant analysis—individual historical paths can both be considered as valu-
able findings in their own right, as well as reflected upon as to whether
they are illustrative of theorised mechanisms for normative and func-
tional IOs.
work together in this capacity (e.g. alongside each other in the Cluster
Approach in their respective leadership roles). We may also hypothesise
that either they themselves or external forces (such as member states)
expect and trust them to continue working in this way. Historically inher-
ited roles as specialists and partners on refugees and migration also indi-
cate why IOM and UNHCR choose to differentiate themselves when it
comes to an association with landmark documents such as the GCR and
GCM; with emerging issue areas such as environmental and disaster dis-
placement challenging existing positions, it may be comforting to relegate
tasks and define positions in an attempt to reaffirm a status quo.
As stated earlier, a third question in this book is in relation to the poten-
tial impact of local agency presence. Path dependency from a purely his-
torical institutionalist perspective might tell us that when an issue arises or
disaster strikes, field offices at UNHCR and IOM are likely to consider
how they have responded to similar situations in the past, and as a result,
engage according to what ‘worked’ before—placing them on a path
dependent trajectory. However, path dependency in the strictest sense
does not fully account for organisational behaviour ‘in the moment’ (e.g.
in disaster response scenarios). The concept of policy inheritances—
whereby ‘policies today are not made in a vacuum; they are built on previ-
ous policy decisions, which exert a heavy hand on future
commitments’—strengthens the path dependence argument, as it accom-
modates ‘on-the-ground’ decision-making and action (Jones &
Baumgartner, 2007, p. 49). This concept born from larger theories of
behavioural change is highly synonymous with path dependence and is a
particularly useful explanation for the assumption that agencies will rely on
a combination of past experiences and existing local capacities to respond
to disasters. The underlying idea of this claim is that organisations have a
limited capacity to tackle multi-dimensional issues as they emerge, and so
decision-making is often reliant on the status quo’—or how a similar issue
was tackled in the past. Priorities are set based on perceived urgency, which
is context sensitive. This project assumes that as the ‘first responder’ to a
disaster on behalf of the wider IO, field offices for UNHCR and IOM will
likely consider a natural disaster in their locality ‘urgent’, and shift atten-
tion to that disaster. On a very empirical level, this means that local offices
potentially have to make decisions on: how they will divert funding from
ongoing projects elsewhere in the country; if they will request increased
funding and support staff from head offices, and if they will reach out to
partner organisations for help on tackling certain aspects of their work?
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 29
of Southeast Asia. Several months later, bodies were still being found, and
the Philippines faced a humanitarian crisis, with almost two million left
homeless and more than six million internally displaced (Mercy Corps,
2013). The event prompted the United Nations to activate the Cluster
System, in which groups of both UN and non-UN agencies and organisa-
tions worked to address a variety of issues such as nutrition, health and
shelter. The event also prompted a large variety of celebrities, companies
and NGOs to raise emergency funding for those affected (Dy & Stephens,
2016), and the 2013 United Nations Climate Change Conference was
coincidentally underway when Haiyan struck, where the UN representa-
tive for the Philippines declared a hunger strike in solidarity with his kins-
men back home (Abano, 2013).
To analyse agency involvement across policy, operational and individual
levels, this book draws from a wide range of both primary and second-
hand sources. A significant bulk of primary sources are from UNHCR and
IOM themselves, in the form of first-hand publications available from
agency archives online. I analysed all publicly available, relevant docu-
ments from both agencies on the topic of environmental and disaster dis-
placement between 2008 and 2017, as well as on Typhoon Haiyan. These
documents included speeches, press releases, policy papers, reports and
official statements. Publications were systematically collected with docu-
ments filtered for key terms, including ‘natural disaster displacement’,
‘environmental displacement’, ‘disaster’, ‘migration and climate change’,
and ‘migration and environment’. Although I largely abstain from use of
the word ‘natural’ in relation to disasters, it is not uncommon for interna-
tional organisations to employ the term to differentiate between environ-
mental and ‘man-made’ disasters (usually associated with violent conflict),
and thus its inclusion in initial searches was warranted. For the second part
of this book, documents specifically mentioning ‘Typhoon Haiyan’ were
of interest, with special preference given to those referring to the cyclone’s
presence in the Philippines. All publications were manually checked for
their relevance and arranged by date prior to analysis.
In addition to first-hand publications, 13 in-depth, semi-structured
interviews with staff members of UNHCR and IOM from both headquar-
ters in Geneva and field offices in the Philippines and other countries, as
well as former employees and high-level experts from within the UN, were
conducted. Seven in-person interviews were conducted in Geneva,
Switzerland, during and surrounding the sixth Session of the Global
Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (2019) and at UNHCR and IOM
32 S. LAKEMAN
After his retirement from his official position, Sir John lived little
more than seven years, dividing his time between Morocco and
Europe, returning, as has been said, for the winter to his beloved
‘Ravensrock,’ enjoying his sport to the end, and at intervals jotting
down his ‘Scraps from my Note-book’ as a slight record of his life. ‘I
feel,’ he says, referring to the appearance of some of his stories in
Murray’s Magazine, ‘like a dwarf amongst tall men. Never mind. If
my relatives and friends are pleased and amused, I shall continue to
unwind the skein of my life till I reach my infancy.’ Among the last of
the notes made by Sir John in his ‘Note-book’ was the following,
which may be appropriately introduced at the close of this sketch of
his career.
Cadiz, 225.
Campbell, Colonel, 28.
Canning, Lady, 47, 66.
Canning, Sir Stratford, 47, 58, 66; appointed Ambassador at Constantinople,
49; his method of conducting business, 49; letter from Sir J. D. Hay on the
state of affairs in Tangier, 68-71.
Carstensen, Mr., 142, 223.
Cartwright, Mr., 66.
Castelar, Señor, 207.
Cattle-lifting in Morocco, 193.
Ceuta, its advantages over Gibraltar, 234.
Chapman, Mrs., anecdote of Sir J. D. Hay, 164.