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Environmental and Disaster

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Silvana Lakeman
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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

ISBN 978-3-030-84538-4    ISBN 978-3-030-84539-1 (eBook)


https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84539-1

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
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Results incorporated in this standard have received funding from the
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
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

1 International Organisations and the Climate-­Migration


Nexus  1
Challenges Facing IO Involvement in Environmental and
Disaster Displacement   4
Legal Frameworks and Internal Displacement   7
Affected Populations, IOs and (New) Humanitarianism  12
The Argument for an Analysis of UNHCR and IOM  16
A Multi-dimensional Approach to Agency Involvement  20
Book Structure  36
Conclusion  38
References  38

2 UNHCR Involvement 2008–2017 49


A Decade of Tentative Involvement at UNHCR  50
Findings  67
Conclusion  75
References  76

3 IOM Involvement 2008–2017 85


A Decade of Expansive Involvement at IOM  86
Findings 107
Conclusion 113
References 114

ix
x Contents

4 Typhoon Haiyan: Context, Actors and Response129


Government of the Philippines 132
International Response 139
Affected Communities 148
Conclusion 151
References 151

5 Typhoon Haiyan: The Involvement of UNHCR


and IOM159
UNHCR’s Priorities 161
IOM’s Priorities 170
Reflections 181
Conclusion 185
References 186

6 Individual Perspectives on Agency Involvement193


A Division of Labour at the Policy Level 195
A Division of Labour at the Field Level 203
Agency Structure 209
The Turbulent Humanitarian Marketplace 218
Shared Values and Future Outlook 220
Final Thoughts and Conclusion 226
References 229

7 Converging International Organisations in the


Climate-Migration Debate231
Cumulative Knowledge Claims: Inheritance and Convergence 232
Implications and Recommendations for Future Research,
Policy and Practice 241
Conclusion 247
References 247

Index249
Abbreviations

CAP Consolidated Appeals Process


CCCM Camp Coordination and Camp Management Cluster
CERF Central Emergency Response Fund
COP21 21st Conference of the Parties
CwC Communications with Communities
DILG Department of the Interior and Local Government
DSWD Department of Social Welfare and Development
DTM Displacement Tracking Matrix
GCM Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration
GCR Global Compact on Refugees
HQ Headquarters
IACAT Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking
IAHE Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation
IASC Inter-Agency Standing Committee
ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
IDMC Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
IDP Internally Displaced Person
IGO Intergovernmental Organisation
IO International Organisation
IOM International Organization for Migration
J/TIP US Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons
L3 Level 3 Emergency
MDGs Millennium Development Goals
MECC Migration, Environment and Climate Change
MIRA Multi-Cluster/Sector Initial Rapid Assessments
NDMO National Disaster Management Office

xi
xii Abbreviations

NFIs Non-Food Items


NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
NRC Norwegian Refugee Council
NSO National Statistics Office
OFDA Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance
OHCHR Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
OPARR Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery
PDD Platform on Disaster Displacement
PDRRMA Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act
RAY Reconstruction Assistance for Yolanda
SDGs Sustainable Development Goals
SGBV Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
SRP Strategic Response Plan
UN United Nations
UNDP UN Development Programme
UNFCCC UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNFPA UN Population Fund
UNHCR UN High Commissioner for Refugees
UNICEF UN Children’s Fund
UNISDR UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
UNOCHA UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
USAID United States Agency for International Development
UNU United Nations University
UNU-EHS United Nations University; Institute for Environment and Human
Security
WASH Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
WFP World Food Programme
WHO World Health Organization
WIM Warsaw International Mechanism
List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Mechanism for involvement (normative IO) 25


Fig. 1.2 Mechanism for involvement (functional IO) 26
Fig. 1.3 Causal mechanism 34
Fig. 2.1 Causal mechanism for involvement, UNHCR 68
Fig. 3.1 Causal mechanism for involvement, IOM 108

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

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1


Switzerland AG 2022
S. Lakeman, Environmental and Disaster Displacement Policy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84539-1_1
2 S. LAKEMAN

in addressing cases of displacement because of environmental catastro-


phes, particularly where countries request international support.
This book focuses on the critical challenge of understanding how these
types of organisations navigate rapidly developing, emerging issue areas
such as environmental and disaster displacement, as well as how and when
they cooperate in what is now an increasingly competitive environment.
This environment may be aptly defined as a ‘humanitarian marketplace’, as
Thomas Weiss (2013) describes in his provocative book Humanitarian
Business. Humanitarian actors now find themselves in an ever-expanding
field ‘that over the past two decades has become increasingly competitive
with a glut of suppliers vying for their share of the market’ (Weiss, 2013,
p. 3). Such terminology has gained traction more broadly in recent years,
with Gilles Carbonnier also referring to the current state of affairs in
humanitarianism as a ‘marketplace’ (Carbonnier, 2016). Nowadays, a
broad range of organisations find themselves increasingly engaging in
cross-cutting issues associated with the climate-migration nexus at the
policy, research and field level. At the United Nations (UN) in particular,
organisations are increasingly connecting their specific issue areas to
human mobility and climate change as part of common and ongoing
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, when considering IOs
best suited for tackling the specific area of environmental and disaster dis-
placement, two stand out.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and
the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are widely consid-
ered two of the most capable international organisations (in terms of both
global reach and funding) for handling issues in this area. Both were
developed post World War II and have since evolved as sprawling bureau-
cratic organisations with field offices in over 100 countries, headquarters
in Geneva and with over 13,000 employees. Both are supported by a large
body of participating member states and non-state donors (International
Organization for Migration, 2018, 2019b; UN High Commissioner for
Refugees, 2019). IOM has also become a closer affiliate of UNHCR in
recent years, with the UN General Assembly unanimously adopting the
resolution to approve the Agreement to make IOM a Related Organisation
of the UN in July 2016 (International Organization for Migration, 2016).
Further, in environmental and disaster displacement, both have expanded
to respond to internal displacement (including following natural disasters)
and have become involved in a number of climate- and disaster-related
adaptation projects. This is particularly evident from the mid-2000s
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 3

onwards, when a UN-wide humanitarian reform process (the Humanitarian


Reform Agenda) took place and both agencies, alongside many others,
committed to more rapid, reliable and cooperative humanitarian relief and
disaster response efforts via their roles in new structures, including the
Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Cluster Approach (UN
OCHA, 2018). Yet, despite their similarities (and increasingly overlapping
tasks), the full extent of UNHCR’s and IOM’s involvement in issues of
displacement due to environmental causes has yet to be documented and
compared, and we know comparatively little about inter-agency coopera-
tion and competition in this issue area.
Scholars have identified both an expanding field of involved actors and
the important role that IOs play in responding to humanitarian disasters
and in tackling environmental migration more broadly. While a prolifera-
tion of actors on the overlapping issues of refugees, migration and internal
displacement has been of note for some time (Betts, 2009), in recent
years, ‘a growing number of international organizations … have moved
the issue of environmental- or disaster-related migration onto their agen-
das’ (Gemenne & Rosenow-Williams, 2016, p. 237). Although UNHCR
and IOM have been identified as crucial organisations in this regard, this
chapter will highlight how existing scholarship has focused on the chal-
lenges that climate change poses for the refugee and migration regimes,
particularly in light of mandate expansions. Such scholarship is incredibly
insightful and has provided a basis for much of the research behind this
book. However, detailed consideration of the UNHCR-IOM inter-agency
relationship, and the challenge environmental and disaster displacement
poses for inter-agency cooperation at the policy, field and individual level
is notably lacking in wider research.
This book focuses on UNHCR and IOM. It asks: How have these two
organisations become involved in environmental and disaster displace-
ment? To what extent and under what circumstances do they work
together and share resources? And what impact does local presence have?
Critical for understanding the future governance and management of
environmental and disaster displacement is a thorough examination of
these organisations as both individual agencies and partners, particularly as
globally relevant issues such as this one warrant the prioritisation of coop-
eration above competition. A consideration of UNHCR and IOM
together is especially pertinent given an increase in the overlap of tasks
these agencies carry out, and the shared challenges faced by both in the
4 S. LAKEMAN

twenty-first century. That both agencies are now UN institutions by exten-


sion only amplifies the necessity for their comparison.
This book shows that the involvement of UNHCR and IOM in the
emerging issue area of environmental and disaster displacement, particu-
larly inter-organisational involvement, has been categorised by (real or
imagined) divisions; of agency structures and mandates, activities and even
personalities. While historically inherited differences exist, the issue area
has led to a converging of agency roles, as well as amplified tensions, at a
time when cooperation is most critical. This book both elucidates difficul-
ties these agencies face in the twenty-first century—between a changing
geopolitical climate and complex inter-agency histories—and highlights
discrepancies and similarities between the two organisations, which must
be acknowledged and worked around to ensure positive progress and
involvement in environmental and disaster displacement. Moreover, draw-
ing attention to this topic is important if organisations are to realise where
resource and protection gaps may remain regarding those on the receiving
end of their involvement.
This book may serve as a lesson (and perhaps a warning) for UNHCR
and IOM—regarding the transparency of their work, their inter-agency
relationship, and how their positions in the international system are per-
ceived by researchers and the public. This book is of particular use for
UNHCR and IOM as organisations, for those studying them and for part-
ners (including other UN bodies, governments and non-governmental
organisations [NGOs]) that may benefit from a detailed understanding of
how and why these organisations do what they do. Further, in giving a
voice to those within and surrounding UNHCR and IOM by way of
interviews, this book bridges a gap between what these organisations
choose to share, and the complex and convoluted roles and positions
organisations and their staff find themselves in when it comes to environ-
mental and disaster displacement.

Challenges Facing IO Involvement in Environmental


and Disaster Displacement

Pervasive in the wider debate on displacement due to environmental fac-


tors is the association between migration and climate change. IOs (includ-
ing UNHCR and IOM) consistently frame environmental and disaster
displacement as it relates to climate change, meriting its
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 5

acknowledgement. This is evident not only from the variety of policy-level


frameworks developed in recent decades (e.g. the Hyogo Framework,
Sendai Framework and UNFCCC Task Force on Displacement), but in all
manner of public documents released by UNHCR and IOM—as will
become clear from historical chapters to come. Such developments at the
IO level are reflective of those in research: although anthropogenic cli-
mate change has likely played a decisive role in human mobility for millen-
nia, the rapid increase in attention to ‘man-made’ global warming effects
on movement has been a mainstay in the discussion on environmental
migration for decades. As consensus grows regarding the multi-causal
nature of migration and displacement, we have seen a shift from broader
predictive claims in the literature (Myers, 1993) to increasing work on
country and regional case studies, which aim to map migratory and dis-
placement patterns in accordance with climatic and environmental shifts,
often with associated policy recommendations (Maldonado et al., 2013;
Saha & Ahmed, 2019; Warner et al., 2009). Such studies are necessary to
identify risks and needs of affected populations; however, they often lack
any significant critical analysis of involved IOs. Nonetheless, the twenty-­
first century has been a critical one for human mobility in the context of
climate change for all parties with a significant policy-affecting voice on
the matter. Climate science undoubtedly plays a formative role in the
decision-­making of a wide variety of entities, with climate change used as
a tool to draw attention to migration, and vice versa, with consequences
for policies and affected populations alike (Mayer, 2016; Trenberth
et al., 2015).
Nowadays, international organisations work in an increasingly uncer-
tain, rapidly evolving and often turbulent environment (Wang, 2008,
p. 425). On the one hand, climate change is a pervasive issue area affecting
a wide spectrum of issues (not least including migration and displace-
ment), which has contributed to regime complexity and resulting account-
ability issues and facilitated mandate expansion. Nowadays, it is much
harder to think of international organisations not touching upon these
issues in the twenty-first century than it is to list those engaged to an
extent—a quick look at the online presence of any UN organisation or
partner will quickly yield findings regarding the threat of climate change
in relation to ongoing projects or mandated work. Climate change (and its
associated effects on human mobility) has certainly contributed towards a
blurring of lines between international regimes across a variety of previ-
ously more distinct issues (such as humanitarianism, labour, refugees,
6 S. LAKEMAN

migration, development and security) (Betts, 2010), compounded by less


pronounced hierarchies at the international organisational level (Alter &
Meunier, 2009, p. 13).
Much of what is discussed as regime complexity translates into discus-
sions on policy convergence, which have emerged in the face of globalisa-
tion. Policy convergence has been broadly described as policies growing
more and more alike over time, visible through increasingly similar struc-
tures, outputs and processes (Drezner, 2001, p. 53), which could invari-
ably equate to policy and operational involvement at the IO level as well.
Debates on convergence have been ongoing for quite some time, with
questions raised as early as the 1990s (Bennett, 1991). However, even
where convergence has been discussed in relation to environmental policy,
the focus has, by and large, been limited to globalisation (in the economic
sense) and state behaviour, which is somewhat limiting and does not nec-
essarily encompass the full extent to which the term could be applied
(Holzinger et al., 2008). Heichel et al. (2005) have even found that there
appears to be no homogenous understanding of policy convergence
amongst scholars, leaving the concept open to interpretation. In my mind,
policy convergence in the twenty-first century is rather synonymous with
regime complexity, in the sense that regime complexities could not occur
at the IO level unless convergence were taking place.
Regardless of how they are understood, regime complexities and con-
vergence more broadly have several important ramifications for inter-actor
cooperation and coordination. Depending on context, different actors—
including IOs, states, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and oth-
ers—may be empowered by the current state of overlap. Indeed, enhanced
cooperation and other positive effects may result from increasingly shared
goals and policies (Alter & Meunier, 2009, p. 14). On the other hand, as
interests converge and organisations work on the same (or similar) tasks,
IOs may find themselves competing for attention and resources—resources
which may, as a result, be wasted or inefficiently used (Alter & Meunier,
2009, p. 14). Competing IOs may also be taken advantage of by member
states or other partners and used coercively or proactively against one
another. For example, states may bypass UNHCR and instead employ the
help of IOM in scenarios that may have otherwise been clearly classed as
refugee ones (Betts, 2010). Conversely, organisations may potentially
influence member state interest in specific topics, leading to an interest
convergence (Bearce & Bondanella, 2007, p. 703). All of these changes
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 7

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).

Legal Frameworks and Internal Displacement


A continual roadblock for addressing and managing environmental and
disaster displacement is deemed to be the lack of a legal definition for dis-
placed persons, most notably when considering cross-border displace-
ment. According to the UN General Assembly, the UN is well aware of a
lack of available frameworks to tackle this area, having stated in 2009 that
‘a new and climate focused legal framework would be necessary to protect
persons displaced by climate change’ (UN General Assembly, 2009,
p. 16). However, since the UN’s original statement, no such framework
has been established. As such, terms such as ‘refugee’, ‘migrant’ (Gogarty,
2011), ‘environmental refugee’ and ‘displaced person’ are used inter-
changeably in relevant texts (UN General Assembly, 2009). As outlined by
François Gemenne (2011), such confusion has its roots in long-standing
‘Maximalist’ versus ‘Minimalist’ debates in the wider legal and termino-
logical literature, as the field struggles to comprehend how environmental
change and associated challenges confront traditional conceptions of what
constitutes ‘forced’ or ‘voluntary’ migration. Maximalists, including
scholars such as Myers and Kent (1995) and Westra (2009), have tradi-
tionally taken a causative view, considering large-scale human migration as
‘a necessary outcome of large-scale changes in the physical environment’,
8 S. LAKEMAN

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

a critical role in partnering with governments to address related issues


(Martin, 2013, p. 8). As natural disasters are quickly becoming a leading
cause of forced displacement globally, it has been argued that major human
rights and protection challenges exist in a world not yet normatively
adapted to meet the demands of environmental and disaster displacement
(Cohen & Bradley, 2010). In other words, conceptual and terminological
debates at the scholarly level (as discussed earlier) continue to play a role
in confusing the issue, and this may extend to seemingly more ‘straight-
forward’ cases of internal displacement due to disasters. I would argue that
migration and displacement in the context of environmental change has
outpaced terminological and legal debates, and that while deliberation at
the scholarly level has persisted, IOs have continued to engage with
migrants and refugees, albeit in an increasingly confusing environment for
all involved. While terminology and legal boundaries have been a tradi-
tional terrain for organisations such as IOM and UNHCR to claim author-
ity of populations and legitimise their involvement, in recent years,
increasingly mixed flows of migrants have challenged the ability of these
agencies to maintain separate activities and determine who is responsible
for who (Moretti, 2020).
This has direct consequences for cooperation and competition between
UNHCR and IOM. Although it has been recognised that careful coordi-
nation and cooperation at the international level is of the utmost impor-
tance when it comes to the environment-migration/displacement nexus,
the fact remains that no hard (legal or otherwise) guidance for engage-
ment in this issue area exists—something Cantor (2021, p. 266) has
described as a ‘blank canvas’. Although the complexities of migration and
the importance of IOs in the international migration and refugee regimes
has been recognised (Martin, 2011), as yet, few have critically considered
how UNHCR (the leading mandated authority on protection) has become
involved in environmental and disaster displacement—nor how their his-
torically operational counterpart, IOM, may have adapted to fill gaps
UNHCR cannot fill, or challenged UNHCR’s mandate in the wake of this
problem. Indeed, it has been recognised that IOs such as UNHCR and
IOM may be able to fill gaps of the other—even if in doing so, this cover-
age is part and parcel of inter-agency competition (Alter & Meunier, 2009,
p. 19). Drawing from examples of mixed-migratory flows in the Asia
Pacific region (where many States are also not party to the Refugee
Convention), Moretti (2020) has highlighted enhanced competition and
challenges in scenarios where both agencies have an institutional presence
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 11

or interest. Such scenarios highlight real-world consequences of termino-


logical debates and ensuing contention and competition between UNHCR
and IOM. Even as scholars mellow in their terminological positions,
UNHCR is still protective of its traditional protection remit, which is chal-
lenged when States refuse to recognise refugee populations and instead
choose to engage the help of other agencies. The expansion of IOM in
recent decades has been argued as a cause for tension, as UNHCR becomes
increasingly concerned with the IOM responding to those who may fall
under the remit of refugees (Moretti, 2020). It could very well be then,
that confusion and convergence in the minimalist/maximalist debate
could partially explain a blurring of roles for UNHCR and IOM in
the field.
Meanwhile, extensions since 1975 in UNHCR’s mandate to include
support to states in the care of internally displaced persons (including
those fleeing natural disasters), has been critiqued as contributing to
regime complexity and reduced clarity regarding legal obligations (Alter
& Meunier, 2009, p. 16). Regime overlap in relation to legal matters has
also been considered problematic in relation to state accountability for
populations; as soon as legalities are called into question, states may shy
from their responsibilities to internally displaced persons and refugees
(Alter & Meunier, 2009, p. 20; Betts, 2009). On the other hand, this
extended scope for concern has arguably played a role in UNHCR’s turn
towards more functional and operational activities in recent decades
(Crisp, 2009, pp. 73–76). This is reflected in the agency’s formalised role
as Protection lead in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s (IASC)
Cluster Approach, which was established in the mid-2000s to ensure pre-
dictable international humanitarian response (Kapuco, 2011). Indeed,
UNHCR has become known for its disaster assistance over the years, as in
the 2009 Philippine floods and 2010 Pakistan floods (Höing & Razzaque,
2012). UNHCR’s shift towards internal displacement protection has been
argued as serving a migration control agenda, and one which may have
contradictory effects on the existing refugee regime, where states are argu-
ably already selectively opting for IOM as a partner in place of UNHCR
as a means to circumnavigate refugee conventions (Betts, 2009, 2010).
It is notable (and unsurprising, given legal implications) that much of
the research conducted on internal displacement at the IO level to date
has focused on UNHCR. However, given the realities of converging IOs
in the twenty-first century in relation to climate change, there is a clear
need to expand research to consider other relevant bodies and their work
12 S. LAKEMAN

on disaster response and protecting the internally displaced. Recently,


Megan Bradley (2020) has made a valuable contribution in focusing
exclusively on IOM and highlighting the ongoing evolution of IOM as a
humanitarian actor, as well as acknowledging debates surrounding the
agency’s mandate, which lacks a formal legal dimension. Earlier work from
Nina Hall (2016) has also certainly begun to fill this gap, as it addresses
the relationship between displacement, development and climate change,
and whether international organisations—UNHCR, IOM and the UN
Development Programme (UNDP)—have moved beyond their formal
mandates. Although critical research, by including the UNDP (and subse-
quently development) in relation to climate change, Hall’s accounts are
rather broad, and do not satisfactorily account for the UNHCR-IOM
relationship in relation to environmental and disaster displacement in sig-
nificant detail.

Affected Populations, IOs


and (New) Humanitarianism

In recognising that the majority of environmental and disaster induced


displacement is internal, the next logical question is to consider who the
internally displaced are, and where we might find them. Correspondingly,
we must ask: why do highly destructive natural hazards cause humanitar-
ian crises in some countries (when a hazard becomes a disaster), and not
in others? The answer appears to be two-fold. On the one hand, there is
an inverse correlation between wealth and vulnerability in relation to envi-
ronmental hazards, with lack of wealth not only increasing vulnerability,
but also creating mobility challenges (Black et al., 2013, p. S36). The
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)
concurs, pointing to weak economic development pathways as an impor-
tant factor in the ability to respond to a natural disaster (UNISDR, 2017).
As a result, low-income countries—and individuals themselves—are most
at risk. This explains to some extent why disasters in developing nations
coincide overall with higher mortality rates, and why ‘emblematic’ cases of
long-term displacement in developed nations following natural disasters,
such as Hurricane Katrina in the United States, have shown that poorer
residents are less likely to be able to return to their homes following disas-
ter (Black et al., 2013, p. S37). International and humanitarian organisa-
tions such as UNHCR and IOM are aware of this imbalance, and more
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 13

broadly concentrate their staff, funding and operations in the Global


South. Nonetheless, climate change as a pervasive issue and its potential to
worsen or increase the incidents of disasters, is challenging IOs as humani-
tarian actors more broadly (Marin & Naess, 2017, p. 15).
High-risk or already affected populations are the focus of a plethora of
existing studies in the twenty-first century on environmental and disaster
displacement, as researchers recognise the need to focus efforts on those
on the receiving end of both the issue itself and any help (be that humani-
tarian or policy-based) they receive, in order to establish lessons learned
and identify where gaps remain to reduce displacement in the future. As a
result, most studies regarding environmental and disaster displacement
have in recent years had a regional or highly localised focus on indepen-
dent disaster or environmental displacement cases. At the individual level,
for example, valuable studies have been done on Small Island Developing
States communities to gauge how these groups consider their mobility
options in the context of climate change (Oakes, 2019; van der Geest
et al., 2019). However, where IOs are considered at all in this type of
detailed research, attention is usually given to an individual organisation
(or employees) and how they are perceived by affected populations—
rarely in relation to other organisations, and not normally as the sole focus
of attention. For example, attention has been paid to how affected com-
munities and aid workers relate to one another following humanitarian
disasters in Nepal (Hilhorst et al., 2012) and what relationships between
practitioners can tell us about humanitarian relationships (McLachlin &
Larson, 2011).
Highly critical work has also been done on wider international organ-
isational responses and IO to NGO collaboration in a variety of sudden-­
onset disasters and in humanitarian contexts (Natsios, 1995), and often in
relation to the broader theme of development (Stokke, 2009). Such stud-
ies have often found disaster responses to be ad-hoc, and not appropriately
adapted to meet the needs of affected populations or sufficiently include
local government and populations in the response process (Kent, 1983).
This image has persisted over the years, despite attempts to reform the
humanitarian system at the UN level since the mid-2000s to ensure better
integrated coordination approaches (Kapuco, 2011). Evaluations (often
produced and/or funded by IOs) have become relatively common, the
vast majority of which come to the same negative conclusions as above.
Such reports have emerged following major disasters such as the Indian
Ocean Tsunami, Typhoon Haiyan and crises in South Sudan and the
14 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

The Argument for an Analysis of UNHCR and IOM


Although neither organisation has been given a direct mandate for disaster
displacement or a broader protection role for those displaced due to envi-
ronmental change, UNHCR and IOM constitute the largest, most well-­
equipped and experienced bodies we have at the international organisational
level for tackling environmental and disaster displacement. The impor-
tance of UNHCR and IOM in this area has been substantiated and legiti-
mised by both the trust member states place in these two agencies and
ongoing institutional efforts, which this book will cover via its empirical
analysis to come. Discussed themes of convergence, regime complexes and
associated issues surrounding legitimacy have played a significant role in
ensuring the importance of UNHCR and IOM as actors in environmental
and disaster displacement in the first half of the twenty-first century. Betts
(2010, p. 13) has acknowledged a critical reason for considering UNHCR
over other agencies—namely that the refugee regime ‘remains the most
developed and coherent aspect of global migration governance’. However,
to discuss migration governance solely through a consideration of
UNHCR is to overlook IOM as UNHCR’s primary historical partner and
adversary (Elie, 2010). Further, while Hall (2016, p. 12) has aptly high-
lighted that a larger group of organisations for analysis may ‘increase the
generalizability of theorizing about organizational change’ (Hall, 2016,
p. 12), in choosing to analyse just two organisations, this book is better
able to look at, and compare in-depth, two highly relevant organisations
and their involvement in a rapidly evolving issue area.
UNHCR and IOM have played an important role as the two leading
agencies on migration, displacement and refugees since their very incep-
tion in a post-World War II and Cold War setting, when UNHCR was
designed as a legal body with limited jurisdiction over refugee law, and
IOM (then the Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of
Migrants from Europe) as UNHCR’s operational, non-UN counterpart,
tasked with the physical movement of Europe’s migrant population,
including refugees (Elie, 2010). On the surface, little appears to have
changed in this regard; UNHCR is still considered the ‘UN Refugee
Agency’, and since its UN Related Organisation status was granted in
2016, IOM has labelled itself the ‘UN Migration Agency’ (International
Organization for Migration, 2019a) mirroring a long-standing theoretical
division of labour. Despite this associated complementariness, historically,
the UNHCR-IOM relationship has been considered both
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 17

cooperation- and competition-inducing. On the one hand, these agencies


have proven their capabilities regarding cooperation, as witnessed via their
joint management of the 1956 Hungarian refugee crisis (Elie, 2010). On
the other hand, structural differences, including both their continued reli-
ance on donations from member states for funding (Elie, 2010, p. 353;
Pécoud, 2018, p. 1629) and differences in mandate (UNHCR has a for-
mal legal mandate to protect refugees, while IOM’s mandate, or constitu-
tion, is more ambiguous), have been identified as competition-inducing.
IOM’s constitutional mandate is more vaguely worded and non-­regulatory,
and as a result, the agency differs from UNHCR at least in part due to a
mandate that is ‘specifically fashioned so as to stimulate tailor-made solu-
tions rather than generic policy guidelines’, as described by Klabbers
(2019, p. 384). In fact, IOM presents something of a challenge for those
studying international organisations from a legal perspective, as the agen-
cy’s ability to interpret its own mandate as it sees fit contributes to the idea
that it is able to both do the work of member states, while ‘influencing the
policies and practices of its Member States’ (Klabbers, 2019, p. 384). This
opens the door for expansion into protection and forced migration—tra-
ditionally the work of UNHCR (Cohen & Bradley, 2010; Hall, 2013;
Koch, 2014), and has potentially significant ramifications for inter-agency
cooperation on environmental and disaster displacement, which, especially
in cases of disaster displacement, is often forced, resulting in protection
concerns for affected populations.
This is not to say that only IOM has the potential for expansion. In fact,
since their creation, both agencies have expanded in operational reach and
scope, to the point that both now share much in common. For instance,
both IOM and UNHCR include the protection of internally displaced
persons to varying extents in their mandates, meaning that there is a huge
amount of overlap in terms of those to whom both bodies may provide
services. In practical terms, this is especially visible in agency field offices,
where the vast majority of over 13,000 employees per agency are heavily
concentrated. Offices carry out a wider variety of operations and activities
than ever before—often in similar or overlapping contexts—and despite
historical funding pressures, yearly budgets for both have regularly
exceeded US$1 billion (International Organization for Migration, 2018,
2019b; UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 2019).
Matters related to environmental and disaster displacement have been
witnessed as part and parcel of this expansion in capacity. This is particu-
larly true from the mid-2000s onwards, when, as part of the UN’s
18 S. LAKEMAN

Humanitarian Reform Agenda in 2005, the Inter-Agency Standing


Committee (IASC) Cluster Approach was established ‘to enhance predict-
ability, accountability and partnership’ in humanitarian emergencies such
as natural disasters (UN OCHA, 2018). Since then, both UNHCR and
IOM have been consistently involved in disasters resulting in displace-
ment, as leaders in their associated fields (titled Clusters) for Protection
(UNHCR) and Camp Coordination and Camp Management, or CCCM
(IOM). From 2008 onwards, the Internal Displacement Monitoring
Centre (IDMC)—a partner and trusted data source for both agencies—
began tracking displacement due to natural disasters (IDMC, 2019b).
Since 2008, IDMC’s data has shown that year on year, those displaced due
to disasters have outnumbered those displaced directly due to conflict by
the millions (IDMC, 2019a, 2019c; Lieberman, 2019), and it has been
recognised by IOM and UNHCR, as well as academics (Eriksen & Lind,
2009; Ghimire et al., 2015; Hendrix & Salehyan, 2012; Nel & Righarts,
2008), that environmental stressors, both sudden- (e.g. flooding, cyclones,
landslides) and slow-onset (e.g. drought, desertification), are often pre-
cursors to, or exacerbators of, conflict—triggering further displacement,
which is usually internal.
Additionally, IOM and UNHCR have become increasingly aware of
the importance of climate change in the context of human mobility, with
a proliferation of policy work on the climate-migration nexus taking place
in recent decades. Although an upturn in global right-wing politics has led
to anti-migrant and refugee policies (Human Rights Watch, 2019) and in
some cases, complete climate change denial (Maza, 2019), UNHCR and
IOM have publicly worked together (as well as with countless others) to
lobby for, and instil language in, formalised documentation and inter-state
agreements that acknowledge associated displacement risks from climate
change and disasters. This involvement has extended to the Hyogo
Framework for Action 2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and
Communities to Disasters, the Sendai Framework (UNDRR, 2019), the
state-led Nansen Initiative to address cross-border displacement in the
context of disasters and climate change, the Platform on Disaster
Displacement (McAdam, 2016) and the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) Task Force on Displacement, established
following the infamous 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) meeting
in Paris in 2015 (UNFCCC, 2020).
Despite this flurry of activity, we have little evidence to suggest that the
involvement of UNHCR and IOM on this issue area poses any less of a
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 19

challenge concerning cooperation and competition-inducing structural


differences that have plagued the inter-agency relationship for the bulk of
their shared histories, such as legal and non-legal mandates and funding
differences. In fact, recent evidence presented throughout this book
would indicate quite the opposite. While this book will illustrate a certain
level of cooperation from 2008 onwards, in late 2018, the Global Compact
for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact
on Refugees (GCR) were created. Although designed to address a wide
array of challenges posed by human mobility in the context of disasters
and climate change and guide governance in this area (UN High
Commissioner for Refugees, 2020b; United Nations, 2019), the Compacts
are indicative of attempts to segregate tasks and roles along the lines of
refugees and migrants, and thus represent a potential opportunity to posi-
tion agencies in line with the historical status quo—UNHCR for refugees,
IOM for migrants. The inter-mediate period between 2008 and 2017 is
therefore of significant interest, as proliferating work in the field of envi-
ronmental and disaster displacement has the potential to challenge both
cooperation and independent agency operations. Although international
organisations such as UNHCR and IOM may, on the one hand, play a
crucial role in responding to, and facilitating the management of, environ-
mental and disaster displacement (Cantor, 2021, p. 312), this doesn’t
mean such actors don’t compete between themselves in this arena.
It is evident that UNHCR and IOM have a unique relationship with
decades of cooperation and competition in relation to environmental and
disaster displacement that is worth exploring. In relation to similarities
(historical and otherwise), we must assume these agencies behave and
engage in new issue areas differently, otherwise there would be little need
for both. That UNHCR and IOM have faced little to no external evalua-
tion regarding their involvement in environmental and disaster displace-
ment, both independently and in partnership, only compounds the need
for a thorough assessment. Seventy years post creation, UNHCR and
IOM are still the largest, most well-equipped and experienced bodies we
have for migration and displacement issues at the IO level. Consequently,
in attempting to understand the governance and management of environ-
mental and disaster displacement, we must address their work in this area.
A detailed investigation into, and analysis of, UNHCR and IOM involve-
ment is not only to our benefit, but to the benefit of future work in this
area and to the agencies themselves, who are rarely evaluated in an inde-
pendent manner.
20 S. LAKEMAN

A Multi-dimensional Approach
to Agency Involvement

Regime complexity and convergence at the IO level regarding the climate-­


migration nexus have a significant role to played in assuring the impor-
tance of UNHCR and IOM in the issue area. Further, these matters may
constitute scope conditions within which both organisations struggle to
operate in the twenty-first-century context at both the policy and field
level. These ideas directly tie into multiple theoretical concepts that may
provide answers to the question of how these two organisations have
become involved in environmental and disaster displacement, as well as to
what extent and under what circumstances they work together and share
resources, and what impact local presence may have. This part of the chap-
ter outlines such concepts and their applicability throughout this book.
First, the concept of logics of appropriateness and consequences and its
potential to explain differences between agencies and their involvement in
emerging issue areas is critically explored. This book both acknowledges
and contributes to existing work in this area, by suggesting a way in which
to better predict the application (or operationalisation) of these ideas
when it comes to the engagement of normative and functional organisa-
tions (IO ‘types’) in emerging issue areas more broadly. Highly interre-
lated with logics of behaviour are the concepts of path dependence and
policy inheritance, which have their roots in historical institutionalism.
Path dependence is a useful tool to link and organise decision-making
through time—with no expectation that it can predict the future—to
explain individual agency paths of involvement. In relation to the histori-
cal relationship between UNHCR and IOM, path dependence tells us that
historical processes dictate a continuation of specialisation at UNHCR
and IOM, and that these agencies are likely to take on different tasks
rather than competing, working together in this capacity. Further, the
highly synonymous policy inheritances suggest that policies are not made
in a vacuum and are built on previous policy decisions, with agencies hav-
ing a limited capacity to tackle complicated issues as they emerge (such as
disaster scenarios). Existing and previous policy decisions may, in practice,
heavily influence IO involvement during and following a disaster response,
with agencies relying on a combination of past experiences and existing
local capacities to respond.
This section explains these concepts and, in combination with the fol-
lowing section on sources and methods, my approach to
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 21

operationalisation. It is important to note that there is significant overlap


in how behavioural logics and IO types, path dependence and policy
inheritances are understood throughout this book. Further, a primary rea-
son to consider these concepts together is the difficulty of separating
them, as well as their overlap with process tracing (explained in the follow-
ing section). From a conceptual point of view, this book intends to illus-
trate that the flexibility of these individual concepts may contribute
positively to empirical insights on IO involvement, but that the jury may
still be out on their conceptual durability.

Logics of Appropriateness and Consequences


This book is most concerned with patterns and paths of involvement at
IOM and UNHCR as individual entities, with the assumption that, given
the time frame under analysis, reasoning behind agency involvement is (at
the abstract level) the same: both UNHCR and IOM became involved in
the issue area because of an initial push for more cohesive involvement at
the international level in the mid-2000s, most visible via a UN-wide
Humanitarian Reform process at that time (UN OCHA, 2018). This is in
combination with broader concerns regarding climate change and migra-
tion in the twenty-first century. However, a second assumption is that
despite surface similarities between these two entities, UNHCR and IOM
likely become involved in new and emerging issue areas in different ways.
After all, were both agencies identical, there would be no need for both.
This book engages with and builds upon existing concepts on behavioural
logics of appropriateness and consequences as one potential explanation
for such a difference.
March and Olsen are some of the leading voices in this theoretical area,
particularly in relation to logic of appropriateness and its role in institu-
tions of democratic governance: a family to which the United Nations
(and therefore, bodies within the United Nations) supposedly ascribe. For
March and Olsen, this logic can be easily equated with rule-following
behaviour, deeply woven into institutions governing organisations (March
& Olsen, 2011, pp. 2–3). By this understanding, if we assume that both
UNHCR and IOM follow a logic of appropriateness, they should at all
times seek to fulfil through action and decision-making the self-image of
their roles in the international system, regardless of the specifics of what
these may look like. Institutional arrangements as a part of the drive for
initial involvement, such as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)
22 S. LAKEMAN

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

Rittberger et al. (2019) have attempted to classify organisations according


to whether they are task-specific or general purpose. Although this last
typology is of interest, its definitional boundaries would likely place IOM
and UNHCR in the same category (both deal with a ‘specific’ topic), and
inconclusively blur lines regarding minute differentiations; such as that
due to other factors, one IO is perhaps less specific to a certain task than
the other, or the fact that UNHCR and IOM may be simultaneously
deemed ‘community driven’ general-purpose IOs (set up by member
states) and ‘problem driven’, whereby states want them to address a prob-
lem area.
One academic who has attempted to separate and ascribe logics to
international organisations in a more specific way is Nina Hall (2013),
who has posited a typology to classify (particularly inter-governmental, or
IGO) organisations. This typology is based on the notion that IGOs exist
along a spectrum from functional to normative ‘ideal’ types. According to
this definition, UNHCR is classed as a normative IGO due to its supervi-
sory authority over refugee law. Given it does not have moral authority
over issues beyond the refugee regime, it should always seek external
approval that the type of activities it pursues are within a morally legiti-
mate scope of issues for action. In doing so, UNHCR follows a ‘logic of
appropriateness’. On the other hand, functional IGOs are not necessarily
legally mandated to ensure or promote compliance with international
norms, even if they have their own mandates. They instead are often
project-­based organisations, performing specialised tasks that are often
supported by core donors. IOM is classed by Hall as a functional IGO,
supposedly with the primary goal to demonstrate its ability to perform
contracted or delegated tasks efficiently and expertly (Hall, 2013, p. 93).
It is worth noting, however, that differences between agency types may be
incredibly subtle, with organisations unlikely to fall perfectly into func-
tional and normative categories. Choosing to view this typology as a spec-
trum is therefore a welcome alternative to a clear separation of logics, with
organisations situated differently depending on the scenario in question.
This book takes Hall’s typology as a base assumption upon which to both
build and test; although both UNHCR and IOM share a large number of
similarities, they may become involved in environmental and disaster dis-
placement in different ways due to differing ‘logics of behaviour’ as a
result of ‘divergent legitimation strategies’ (Hall, 2013). Such an under-
standing of IGO ‘types’ supports this book’s assumption that IOM’s
involvement, in comparison with UNHCR’s, should be quicker, more
24 S. LAKEMAN

expansive and not legalistic, while UNHCR will be limited by normative


constraints and conform to a logic of appropriateness.
Ascribing to Hall’s typology to understand IOM’s and UNHCR’s
paths of involvement is not to say that March and Olsen do not make
strong arguments. As will become clear throughout empirical chapters,
their emphasis on difficulties regarding a clear separation of the two logics
is a valuable point that this book contributes to generally, while testing
Hall’s typology. This is supported by the fact that there is room in March
and Olsen’s interpretation for individual agency of organisations or other
entities potentially under analysis. In fact, March and Olsen state that rules
might ‘guide behaviour and make some actions more likely than others’,
but they rather ‘provide parameters for action rather than dictate a specific
action, and sometimes actors show considerable ability to accommodate
shifting circumstances by changing behaviour without changing core rules
and structures’ (March & Olsen, 2011, p. 7). This would imply, for
instance, that UNHCR (as a normative body) should be able to adapt in
some manner to dealing with a new issue area without dramatically chang-
ing organisational principles, workings or its mandate to protect refugees.
On the other hand, IOM, as a more ‘functional’ organisation following a
logic of consequences, should not be faced with concerns over whether
engaging in a new issue area detracts from core rules and structures, but
rather with how engaging in a new issue area might contribute to main-
taining its relevance to the international community and the countries in
which it operates.
This typology is a solid starting point. However, we have little indica-
tion from Hall (or any others, for that matter) for how we might opera-
tionalise, or empirically test, this difference, and we are left wondering
what observable indications for the involvement of a normative or func-
tional organisation in a new issue area may look like. To bridge this gap, I
would like to introduce here potential paths for involvement at normative
and functional organisations in a new, or emerging, issue area (such as
environmental displacement). Borrowing from the process tracing method
(explained in more detail later on), these paths can be visualised as abstract
causal mechanisms, described as entities (E) engaging in activities (A)
(Machamer et al., 2000). As Fig. 1.1 describes, in the case of a normative
IO (the entity), an IO will attempt to expand into a new issue area (in this
case environmental and disaster displacement), by increasing its engage-
ment in existing activities or engaging in new ones (or both) at the policy
and operational (field) level (the activity). The normative IO will then face
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 25

Fig. 1.1 Mechanism for involvement (normative IO)

pushback (the activity) from either internal (employees) or external forces


(member states/donors) (the entities). Considering this, the normative
IO (the entity) will retreat, scaling back activities or halting dramatic
expansion (the activity). If the normative IO (the entity) really wants to
work in the issue area, they will adjust to this reality, and engage in activi-
ties that do not go beyond their mandated responsibilities (the activity).
UNHCR, as a normative agency, should follow such a path for involve-
ment in environmental and disaster displacement more broadly. This can
be summarised broadly as ‘expand, retreat, adjust’.
Similar to a normative body, Fig. 1.2 denotes how a functional IO (the
entity), such as IOM, will also attempt to expand into the new issue area
by in-creasing its engagement in existing activities or engaging in new
ones at both the policy and field level (the activity). However, its reason-
ing is more likely to be tied to donor needs, with justification for involve-
ment associated with existing issues for donors. If the agency faces no
pushback from donors, the functional IO (the entity) will progress to seek
funding (the activity) for projects. The functional IO (the entity) will con-
tinue to expand indefinitely, so long as projects are funded (the activity).
The IOM should generally follow such a path for involvement in
26 S. LAKEMAN

Fig. 1.2 Mechanism for involvement (functional IO)

environmental and disaster displacement. This can be summarised as


‘expand, seek funding, expand’.
In sum, a major assumption in this book is that although involvement
may vary based on circumstances individual to different cases of displace-
ment (developed in the coming section on policy inheritances), overall,
UNHCR may be limited in some way due to the need to fulfil its mandate
to protect refugees above all else. Although UNHCR may still work with
other international organisations on matters of internal displacement, the
need to act appropriately within its own legal boundaries will come first.
On the other hand, IOM, unrestricted by the same legalities, may more
extensively support internally displaced communities and rapidly become
engaged on the ground, so long as it is in the interest of its donors to do
so. Importantly for the future of this typology, this book applies these
ideas to not only UNHCR (as Hall has done in a broader sense), but a
functional body in the form of the IOM. There are also two notable levels
of ‘mechanising’ occurring in this book. On the one hand, I am introduc-
ing the shallow, yet generalisable, mechanisms for involvement as seen in
Figs. 1.1 and 1.2, which build on existing conceptions of behaviour at
normative and functional organisations in a new issue area. On the other
hand, this book purposefully considers UNHCR and IOM as stand-alone
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 27

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.

Path Dependence and Policy Inheritances


Although largely subjective, when considering the history of both
UNHCR and IOM in the issue area, this book is also guided by the basic
concept in historical institutionalism of path dependence, with the basic
idea being that the path of an organisation when first introduced to a new
issue area can be highly influenced by even small disturbances, but once
the organisation has ventured down a particular path, they will likely find
it difficult to reverse course. In other words, organisations may be affected
by positive feedback processes (Skocpol & Pierson, 2002). This is a point
not lost on March and Olsen (2011, pp. 8–9), who have recognised in
relation to logics of behaviour that behaviour ‘associated with successes or
survival is likely to be repeated’. Similarly, Nobel Laureate Douglas North
(1990, pp. 98–99) views path dependency as a process which constrains
future choices—but importantly, does not easily predict the future. This is
very close to the way path dependence is understood in this book—a con-
ceptual tool to help link and organise decision-making through time (with
no expectation that it can predict the future) and to explain individual
paths of involvement.
In relation to this concept, what could be said about the involvement
of IOM and UNHCR? We know these agencies have been involved in the
IASC Cluster Approach and have specialised their involvement in disaster
scenarios within this structure, with UNHCR the lead agency on
Protection, and the IOM as lead on Camp Coordination and Camp
Management (CCCM). We also know that in the post-analysis period,
they have carried out related yet largely separated work within the frame-
work of the Global Compacts on Refugees (GCR) and for Migration
(GCM) (UN OCHA, 2018; United Nations, 2019). If history and conti-
nuity matters, but agency involvement must be understood in relative
terms and in relation to the geopolitical setting within which engagement
is embedded, we may predict that in relating path dependency and IGO
types, UNHCR and IOM may be locked into certain areas of specialisa-
tion. They are likely to take on different tasks rather than competing, and
28 S. LAKEMAN

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

Concepts discussed earlier directly overlap with that of policy inheritances;


Marin and Naess (2017) have found that in relation to ‘new humanitarian-
ism’, inertia of organisational cultures and existing financial models act as
a barrier of sorts to IOs working at the intersection between climate
change and humanitarian response, while Alter and Meunier (2009, p. 17)
have argued that regime complexities play a direct role in selective infor-
mation processing amongst actors when faced with difficult and emer-
gency scenarios.

Scope, Sources and Methods


Observable outcomes of involvement are seen most clearly through agency
policies and operations, and so this book considers both via a historical
analysis, a disaster scenario and interviews. In considering individual
organisational histories, this book focuses on the period between 2008
and 2017. 2008 is situated in between numerous events considered to be
of importance for the work of not only UNHCR and IOM, but more
broadly, international organisations on the issue of environmental and
disaster displacement. Several years earlier, in 2005, the Cluster Approach
was activated for the first time following flooding in Pakistan, the active
use of which may be seen as a starting point of sorts for analysis and a
contributing ‘trigger’ or ‘cause’ for involvement of both organisations to
come (UN OCHA, 2018). 2008 itself saw the beginning of systematic
recording by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) of
displacement due to disasters, making disaster displacement easier to study
from this point onwards. Regarding the two agencies themselves, leader-
ship at both remained fairly stable between 2008 and 2017, with António
Guterres serving as High Commissioner at UNHCR until 2015 (begin-
ning in 2005), and William Lacy Swing appointed Director General of
IOM in 2008, a post he held until the appointment of António Vitorino
in 2018. We might consider the ‘late start’ of Swing and the ‘early retire-
ment’ of Guterres as a relatively fair trade-off when it comes to analysing
agency involvement.
However, a historical analysis alone offers little tangible evidence
regarding the details and complexities of on-the-ground operations in the
field—where most of UNHCR’s and IOM’s work is implemented.
Therefore, a second part of this book provides a detailed account of both
agencies’ involvement in the Philippines in 2013 following Typhoon
Haiyan, understood as a jump of sorts from the largely policy-based
30 S. LAKEMAN

‘public image’ presented in initial chapters to the more convoluted opera-


tional level—a ‘middle ground’ for involvement. While paths of involve-
ment are largely untestable in a stand-alone disaster scenario (making it
difficult to reflect on whether or not agency behaviour is more functional
or normative), this level of analysis considers whether disaster involvement
reflects broader historical patterns of engagement throughout the decade
studied. Whether policy inheritances may influence involvement during
and following a disaster, or if the specialisation of agencies in specific areas
of work in a disaster setting is reflective of ongoing path dependent his-
torical processes or not, is considered.
As for the selection of Typhoon Haiyan itself, the decision to include a
sudden-onset disaster as opposed to a case of slow-onset environmental
degradation was a tactical one. Sudden-onset events such as tropical
cyclones tend to have a clear ‘beginning’ and ‘end’, and thus their occur-
rences are very tangible. They tend to result in immediate issues surround-
ing displacement that are more easily directly attributed to the event,
whereas slow-onset disaster, such as desertification or drought, are more
difficult to separate from other drivers of migration, such as social, eco-
nomic or political instability. As will become clear in chapters to come,
sudden-onset events constitute the bulk of directly observable involve-
ment of UNHCR and IOM in cases of environmental and disaster dis-
placement in recent decades. Haiyan is perhaps as representative of IO
involvement as any other disaster, in the sense that one cannot directly
compare a single organisation’s involvement across disasters in multiple
countries, given the (often dramatic) difference in hazards, government
style and capacity, and the political, social and economic situation each
country faces at any given point in time. Haiyan also relates well to the
broader cause for involvement of IOM and UNHCR in that it represents
a large-scale, deadly emergency that elicited a coordinated IO response.
In considering a case from a ‘middle-income’ or developing state, this
book also considers a scenario in which we expect UNHCR and IOM to
become involved or to engage in, to some extent; Typhoon Haiyan is a
most likely case. The Philippines is a prime country for analysing how
international organisations are tackling disaster displacement, as it is one
of the world’s most disaster prone developing countries, with around 20
such storms entering the Philippine Area of Responsibility per year
(Brown, 2013). When Typhoon Haiyan made landfall on November 7th,
2013, it was the deadliest typhoon on record ever to hit the Philippines,
killing over 6000 people in that country and going on to devastate much
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 31

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

headquarters, whilst six took place via videoconference. Expert interviews


play a valuable role in this book, contextualising data and inferring insights
into the thinking of these organisations, as well as how current and former
employees, as well as colleagues from other agencies, think about UNHCR
and IOM’s work on environmental and disaster displacement. Prior to
carrying out interviews, consent forms, interview guides and plans for
transcription and data storage were shared with academic ethics commit-
tees (specifically, the former BIGSSS Ethics Committee and Jacobs
University Ethics Committee). With the permission of interviewees, all
interview sessions were recorded and transcribed, with all kept anony-
mous, say for the affiliation of interviewee with either UNHCR, IOM or
a third category titled ‘Other’, and my own judgements regarding senior-
ity and knowledge on field or headquarters expertise.
Desk research informed what kind of questions were of importance for
the interview process, particularly in relation to unavailable information,
and interviews were deliberately left semi-structured in order to make
space for any alternative explanations to issues that interviewees offered.
Interview data was then analysed as an added layer of ‘evidence’ to give
stock to findings. On multiple occasions, interesting revelations from
interviews prompted a revaluation of archival material and pointed to yet-­
visited documentation. A range of additional sources were sought through-
out work on this book, such as reports, accounts, publications and articles
from a range of external sources—including partner agencies and organ-
isations to UNHCR and IOM, and academic publications.
Aside from conducting archival research and interviews, I employed
process tracing as my primary method for both evaluating collected data
and substantiating theorised mechanisms regarding agency involvement in
emerging issue areas. Put simply, process tracing allows space for an iden-
tification of patterns of connected events that may emerge from the docu-
mentation studied. Process tracing was utilised most clearly in relation to
initial historical chapters on UNHCR and IOM’s involvement in environ-
mental and disaster displacement, and what such histories may tell us
about involvement of IOs in new issue areas. More broadly, however, the
way data is considered and evaluated as evidence in process tracing was
applied throughout the entire project as my primary data analysis tool.
Notably, the literature indicates that there are multiple ways one can
use process tracing, and and academics tend to categorise its use into
theory-testing, theory building or explaining an outcome (Beach &
Pedersen, 2013, p. 21). I am of the mind that all applications of process
1 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE CLIMATE-MIGRATION NEXUS 33

tracing are explaining an outcome, and in most cases, testing theory to


some extent, if not building a theory, as causal mechanism making is
theory-­building. On the one hand, this book undoubtedly engages with
theory-centric process tracing. I have theorised a simplistic mechanism for
involvement in new issue areas such as environmental and disaster dis-
placement at normative and functional IOs. With this in mind, the book
goes on to consider ‘whether the predicted empirical manifestations of the
mechanism were present or absent’ in the following chapters on UNHCR
and IOM (Beach & Pedersen, 2013, p. 33). However, in light of the dif-
ficulties in theorising exact empirical manifestations for normative and
functional IO paths (expand, retreat, adjust, and expand, seek funding,
expand, respectively), I also deliberately engage with what Beach and
Pedersen (2013, p. 33) have referred to as a ‘misuse’ of process tracing, by
tracing sequences of events at UNHCR and IOM that would indicate a
causal path for involvement, but stopping short of completely unboxing
every tiny detail. This approach has been referred to as black-boxing—per-
haps the most famous example of which is Nina Tannenwald’s (2007)
study on the ‘non-use’ of nuclear weapons.
The reason for this admission is two-fold. Firstly, when it comes to
detailed, within-case analyses, an investigation of IO involvement is likely
to be unique to specific cases. Secondly, it is beyond the scope of this book
to test whether agency ‘types’ are the only reason agencies get involved in
a new issue area in any given manner; rather it is only to propose that nor-
mative or functional association may be one (of potentially many) contrib-
uting factors for differences in agency involvement. This is in recognition
of a major limitation of process tracing, namely that ‘process tracing meth-
ods cannot test for the necessity of a mechanism’ (Beach & Pedersen,
2013, p. 93). This book therefore both presents case-centric analyses,
whereby outcomes of historical chapters are mechanisms which may be
‘considered a loose conglomerate of systematic and non-systematic parts
that together account for a particular outcome’, and engages with ‘rela-
tively simple causal mechanisms that include only systematic parts that can
be generalised beyond the confines of the single case’ (Beach & Pedersen,
2013, p. 23).
Borrowing from popular conceptions of causal paths and mechanism
making in process tracing (Bennett & Checkel, 2015, p. 131), and as
noted earlier, a causal mechanism in this book is understood as a process
connecting a trigger and an outcome, nested within a range of scope con-
ditions, and made visible primarily through the engagement of entities (E)
34 S. LAKEMAN

Fig. 1.3 Causal mechanism

in activities (A) (Machamer et al., 2000). The process is the predicted


operationalisation of hypotheses, which then requires establishing evi-
dence to support (or refute) each point (here an arrow) in the process.
Scope conditions largely consist of background information, or the envi-
ronment for organisational involvement (Fig. 1.3).
When it comes to the involvement of UNHCR and IOM in environ-
mental and disaster displacement, this book considers the trigger for
agency involvement to be the UN-wide push for humanitarian reform in
the mid-2000s, notably operationalised via the IASC Cluster Approach
and the increase in association between climate-related aspects of mobility
at the international organisational level. The outcome is simply involve-
ment; however, we expect this involvement to look different at UNHCR
and IOM based on their earlier categorisation as normative or functional
IOs (Figs. 1.1 and 1.2). Once a trigger and an outcome are identified, one
must establish a causal mechanism, as I have done in the previous section,
and move on to the next step of gathering empirical evidence.
I also used process tracing as a tool to rigorously analyse all empirical
data sources as evidence, with every publication collected, as well as tran-
scribed interviews, treated as such. In process tracing, the most important
consideration when analysing a potential piece of evidence—regardless of
what form this takes—is to decide whether and how the evidence contra-
dicts or supports any or several parts of the causal mechanism for that case,
in what way, and to what extent. While I weighed all evidence as strong or
weak according to perceived reputability and level of authority, the
strength and merit of evidence was primarily considered by manually put-
ting all publications and interviews through process tracing tests, namely;
straw-in-the-wind, smoking-gun, hoop and doubly decisive (Collier,
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
have I been wounded. But I have been knocked over frequently
through carelessness in approaching boar at bay down-wind, or in
stalking at night. The latter sport, especially when stalking a solitaire,
is very exciting: it requires skill, patience, and great caution.
I wear, when stalking, shoes with rope-soles, enabling me to tread
noiselessly over rough ground. I have stalked boar on a dark night
up-wind, when feeding in corn, until I have approached the animal
hidden by the crop, and have put the barrel of my gun within a foot of
his body before firing. When I heard the boar occupied in tearing off
a pod of Indian corn or munching grain, I advanced. When he
stopped feeding to listen, as they will cunningly do for several
minutes, I stood motionless also, until the munching recommenced.
One very dark night I managed to approach so noiselessly along
a narrow path through a copse which led to an orchard—where I had
heard from the windows of my villa at ‘Ravensrock’ a boar eating
apples—that I actually pushed my knee against the boar, who had
his snout in an opposite direction, before either of us became aware
that we were at close quarters. My gun was not cocked, for I did not
expect to have to use it until I entered the orchard, where I supposed
the boar to be still feeding. The leap I made in the air was not more
frantic than that of the boar, who jumped into the thicket. We were
both terribly startled. The boar had no doubt in the still night heard
me close the door of the balcony, two hundred yards off from the
orchard, and had hidden in the dark path to listen and await events.
On another occasion, having observed during my rides on the hill
that boar came down at night to a rough field of barley, I took my gun
a little before sunset and rode to the ground. I left my nag in charge
of a Moor, about a quarter of a mile from the field, and directed him
to keep quiet, and not to come near the field until I fired a shot. The
crop of barley I had observed was poor and short, so I felt sure I
should see the body of any boar worth firing at.
I seated myself on a rock about three feet from the ground. In my
belt was a long Spanish knife, with a handle made to insert in the
muzzle of a gun, like a bayonet. The moon had set, the sky was
cloudy, and starlight very faint. I wrapped a piece of white paper as a
sight around the gun, a few inches from the lock, so that I could see
it, even though the night was very dark. Just as the nine p.m.
Gibraltar gun boomed across the Straits, I heard a rustling in the
bush and a grunt, warning me the enemy was nigh.
The wind was favourable; the boar had entered the field on a
different side from what I expected. I strained my eyes to view the
beast, whom I could hear chewing the ears of barley, but could not at
first distinguish him.
At length he approached within fifteen yards from the rock where I
was seated, and I could just see his head above the barley, therefore
I concluded, supposing the stalk was short, it was a sow or only a
two-year-old. I waited until the object advanced within a few yards,
and I could see a good patch of black body. I fired, and heard the
noise of the fall; then the boar rose, went a few yards, and tumbled
over, and I could distinctly hear what appeared to be its death-
struggles. Then all was still; I got down from the rock, but did not
reload, thinking there was no risk, and walked to the spot where I
heard the struggles.
In the short barley were several low palmetto bushes. Seeing a
dark object move, as I fancied, I aimed and fired. It was a palmetto
bush—the leaves shaken by the wind had rustled. Within a few yards
of this bush a large form suddenly rose and came slowly towards
me. Both barrels were empty. I had barely time to insert the Spanish
knife in the muzzle of the gun when I could see a grim head and
tusks glistening in the starlight. It was not, as I had supposed, a sow
or a pig; it was a tusker.
The ground was favourable, for I stood uphill above the boar. I
held the gun so that the knife should enter at the shoulder and not
strike the head. As the boar pressed on to reach me, I joyfully felt the
blade penetrate into its body up to the hilt, and expected he would
fall dead; but no, limping on one sound leg he continued to advance;
so I backed, nearly falling over a palmetto bush; then the boar
moved to one side to get round upon me, and I followed his
movements, dreading every moment that the knife, if the boar
retreated, would be withdrawn.
Again he came on with a rush, and I moved rapidly backwards
until my back came against a rock in the field about four feet from
the ground. I scrambled up it, pressing the knife and gun against the
boar’s body to assist me. He tried to follow, but, with his disabled leg,
failed and then moved away, carrying the knife in his body, whilst I
retained the gun. I reloaded safely on the rock, thanking God for my
narrow escape.
As the Moor came up with my horse I shouted to him to keep at a
distance, saying the boar was alive and close by. I then got off the
rock and advanced carefully, with both barrels loaded, to the spot to
which I fancied the animal had retreated. Up he got, and came at me
with a rush, receiving the contents of both barrels in his head and
body. I found the long Spanish knife had entered the neck above the
shoulder, and passed along the skin without penetrating the body.
The steel was not good, and had been bent during the struggle. The
boar proved to be a fine three-year-old, with tusks which could have
cut me into shreds. During my tussle with this beast I had a vivid
recollection of having heard that a Moorish hunter, a short time
before my adventure, had fired at a boar at night in a field of Indian
corn, and had followed up the tracks of blood at dawn for some
distance, when he came suddenly upon the wounded animal, who
charged before he could fire, knocked him down and ripped his body
severely. His family, finding next morning he did not return, sent out
in quest of him to the field of corn, and there he was found in a dying
state, wounded in the stomach, just able to relate what had
happened. Within a few yards of the wounded man lay the tusker
quite dead.
Some years ago an English official at Tangier, R———, a very
absent man, sallied out one night to sit for a large boar, which was
reported to pass every evening after dusk a path not far from my
stable at Ravensrock. Near this path in the bush was a rock, on
which my friend squatted with a double-barrelled gun to await the
boar.
It was a very dark night, but the path of white sand in front,
contrasting with the green bush around, could be clearly seen, as
also any object moving along it. He heard the tread of a large animal,
and as it approached within a few feet he fired, but his horror and
dismay can be imagined when down fell a donkey with panniers and
a man on the top! Explanations ensued, with warm expressions of
regret on the part of R———, which were accepted good-naturedly
by the Moor, especially when the former put in his hands double the
value of the donkey and the panniers. The ball had passed through
the top of the skull of the donkey. Strange to say the animal
recovered, and was made use of in R———’s garden.
Boar during the fruit-harvest come down to the orchards near
Tangier and commit great ravages. When sufficient fruit is not
scattered on the ground, they will rub against apple or pear trees
until the fruit falls, or they will spring on the top of a trellis of vines,
tearing it down to the ground to get at the grapes. The Moors put
nooses of rope at the gaps in the hedge where boar enter, and
fasten the noose to a tree or to a bundle of branches. The animal is
often found strangled in the morning; but when the rope is fastened
to loose branches it is less likely to snap, and the boar will carry off
the bundle, until stopped by an entanglement of the rope with some
other object.
Being out one day with a party of hunters, I saw at a distance a
thick bush moving slowly, as by magic, along the top of a dense
copse of gum cistus. No horse or man could be seen. One of the
hunters exclaimed, ‘a boar has been caught in a noose! See the
bush to which it is fastened moving along the top of the copse.’ We
decided to take the animal alive, so approaching the bush and long
rope to which the noose was attached, we laid hold of the rope and
pulled it tight, until the boar was half-strangled. We then gagged the
beast with a thick stick and string. He was dragged out of the thicket,
put on a pack animal and carried to a room in my stable, where the
gag was removed and food and water given.
Next day I invited a party of riders to see the boar turned loose in
the open, two or three miles away from the bush. The horsemen took
no weapons, and our motley pack of boar-dogs were held in leash by
hunters, who were directed to let go when I should give the signal
after the pig had a fair start of one hundred and fifty yards.
Some ladies joined us on horseback, but my wife, being nervous,
rode a donkey, and had a Moor to lead it and to take care of my
young son, who was in front. I placed them on a hillock about two
hundred yards off, where I thought they would be safe and be able to
view the boar. Telling the horsemen and Moors who held the dogs in
leash not to start until I gave the signal, I had the boar conveyed to a
high bank on a dry watercourse, and then removing the gag and
untying the rope, we dropped him gently down, thus giving time for
the men on foot to hide and me to mount before the boar could
charge us. He was only a two-year-old, so his tusks were not very
formidable. The boar bolted up the gulley, and on reaching the top of
the bank looked around, North, South, East and West, but saw no
cover. Viewing my horse about forty yards off he charged, and I
galloped away. The boar halted, looked around, and saw on the
mound an object with brilliant ribbons dangling in the wind, and then
to my great consternation made straight for my wife’s donkey. In vain
I rode full tilt, cracking my hunting-whip, trying to turn the beast, and
shouting to the hunters to let the dogs slip; but before they came up,
the boar got under the donkey, trying to rip it, whilst the Moor,
holding my son aloft on his shoulders, was kicking at the boar.
Up came the dogs, who drew off the boar’s attention, and away
he went; but being better inclined to fight than to gallop, the chase
was short, and he was pulled down by the dogs.
‘Take this knife,’ I said to a long Yankee official; ‘as this is your first
boar-hunt, you shall have the honour of giving the death-blow.’ Knife
in hand, the New Yorker fearlessly advanced, and was inserting
expertly the blade near the region of the heart, when up jumped the
dying pig, knocked over his lank antagonist, and then fell never to
rise again.
Boar when caught young become very attached to man, and will
follow like a dog. They can be taught cleanly habits when kept in a
house, but have no respect for flowers, and cannot resist rooting up
any object which is not firmly fixed in the ground or pavement. I had
a large sow as a pet, which followed me out riding for long distances.
When attacked by dogs on passing villages, the sow would turn
on them and fight gallantly, until I came to the rescue with my
hunting-whip. She became at length very troublesome, and would be
off on the loose into the town whenever the stable-door happened to
be left open. I had frequent complaints from bakers and
greengrocers, and had heavy damages to pay for robberies of bread,
so I gave orders that the sow was to be shut up in a yard.
One day, when the door had been left open, as the sow rushed
rapidly up the street towards a greengrocer’s shop in the little
market-place, where she was accustomed to rob, it happened that a
young mulatto woman, whose legs had been paralysed for some
years, and who gained her livelihood by begging, was crawling on
her elbows and knees along the streets, coming down towards the
Legation. She had never seen a pig in her life, so when she beheld a
large black animal rushing frantically, as she supposed, to devour
her, thought it was a ‘Jin[68].’
The shock was so great, that up she scrambled and ran off; the
paralysis of her legs had ceased. This miracle performed by the sow
was a source of wonder to all, especially to the Mohammedans, loth
to believe that ‘Allah’ should make use of the unclean animal to heal
the maimed. The next day the mulatto appeared at my gate, walking
upright, to petition that I should give her compensation for the fright
she had experienced, pleading also that the pig had deprived her of
the means of gaining her livelihood, for she was now whole, and no
one took pity and bestowed alms on her as before. I gave her only
my blessing, for she was strong and young, and could work. The
sow was presented by me to a gentleman in England, who wished to
introduce a cross of the wild animal.
The sagacity of the boar is greater than that of most animals. A
Moorish Sheikh dwelling in the mountains about forty miles from
Tangier, brought as a gift to the Basha a full-grown boar, that had
been caught when only two months old. The animal had become
very tame; it was brought tied on the back of a pack mule.
A few days after presentation the Basha’s sons carried the boar
out into the country and let it loose, slipping greyhounds to give
chase. The boar knocked over the hounds, charged and ripped two
horses, and got away. Next morning it was found feeding quietly in
the yard of its master’s house, forty miles off! I was glad to learn that
the owner, on hearing how his pet had been treated by the Basha’s
sons, kept the animal until it died.
In the present century lions have rarely been seen in the Northern
province of Morocco.
During a residence of many years I have only heard of two having
been seen in the woods between Tangier and Cape Spartel. I cannot
account for these lions having wandered so far from the Atlas
Mountains—where they are still to be found—except, as the Moors
of those regions relate, that when the winter has been unusually cold
and snow has fallen heavily, the wild animals which dwell in the
higher parts of the Atlas descend to the valleys and plains. Should a
thaw suddenly set in, and rivers and brooks become swollen, the
lions and other wild animals which seek to return to the mountains
are prevented repassing the rapid streams, and stray away from the
district, seeking for forest or for an uninhabited country, and, moving
along the chain of hills to the northward, reach the district of Spartel
—which is about seven miles square—bounded on the western side
by the Atlantic and on the northern by the Straits of Gibraltar.
Early one morning I had a visit from several inhabitants of the
village of ‘Jamah Makra,’ not far from the site of my present villa
‘Ravensrock,’ which stands on a hill, three miles out of Tangier,
surrounded by woods. The men came to request that I should
assemble my hunters and sally out in pursuit of a wild animal which,
they related, had lacerated with its claws the flank of a mare and
bitten it in the neck. They informed me that they had been roused in
the middle of the night by the tramp of horses galloping through the
lanes—snorting and neighing—and supposed that cavalry had been
sent to surround the village. But to their surprise they found their own
ponies (which are allowed to run loose on the hills when not required
for agricultural purposes, and live in a half-wild state, never allowing
man to approach them, especially at night-time) had by instinct
sought safety in the village, trying to penetrate even into the huts.
Amongst the herd was the wounded mare, in a dying state.
I assembled a party of hunters with their boar-dogs, and
proceeding to the spot we found round the village tracks of a large
animal; evidently of the feline race, as the footprints were round, with
no mark of nails, but had pads, as in the print of a cat’s foot. The
beast appeared to have avoided as much as possible the open path,
and to have walked near or amongst the ilex bushes, on which we
found long tawny hairs, showing it was a male lion. We also came
across the half-eaten carcasses of a boar and of a porcupine. There
were marks too as of a herd of boar making a stampede in a
southerly direction, fleeing from the dread monarch of the woods.
We turned our dogs into the thicket—where, by the tracks, we
knew the lion had entered—and placed two guns at each run. But
the dogs returned from the thicket and shrank behind their masters.
They had evidently come upon or winded the lion, and we could not
induce them to hunt. The beaters, after entering the thicket, firing
guns, and beating drums, refused to advance further; so we had to
abandon the hunt.
A woman whom we met informed us that, on going to a fountain in
her orchard to draw water, she had met a ‘jin’ (evil spirit), evidently,
from her description, a lion; that she became paralysed from fright
and could not move; that the ‘jin’ had eyes like lamps, and after
gazing at her had turned aside into the bush.
The Moors believe that lions will never attack a nude woman,
such is the magnanimous beast’s delicate sense of shame.
Lionesses, it is to be concluded, are less particular. The dame did
not mention that she had a knowledge of this, so we know not
whether she dropped her vestments to save her life.
There was a good moon; so I determined to sit for the lion, safely
perched on a rock, where, though it would be possible for a lion to
climb, yet I should have had a great advantage in an encounter with
gun and pistols. I passed the night in a state of excitement—starting
at every rustle made by rabbit, ichneumon, or even rats—without
seeing anything of the king of beasts. But about midnight I heard
what sounded from a distance like the deep bellow of a bull.
A few days later, hearing that the track of the lion had been seen
at ‘Ain Diab,’ a wood near Cape Spartel, I collected the hunters and
rode to the ground, about eight miles from Tangier. There we tracked
the lion into a dense thicket. The dogs again refused to hunt, as on
the previous occasion, winding no doubt the lion. This was good
proof that he was at home; so posting the guns, I directed the
beaters to drive the wood from the foot of the hill and that guns
should occasionally be fired and drums beaten.
A few minutes after I had taken up my post a Moor hurried up to
where I was standing, in a great state of excitement, pale as death,
saying, ‘I have seen the man[69]!’ ‘What man?’ I asked. He repeated,
‘I have seen the man! I had entered the thicket to look at an olive-
tree from which I thought I could cut a good ramrod; there is a rock
rising about twenty feet above the olive-tree, and as I stooped to look
whence I could best cut a branch, I saw a great shaggy head, with
fierce eyes glaring at me from between two huge paws. I had laid
down my gun to cut the olive stick; I dared not turn to take it up
again, so left it there and crawled back through the bush to tell you
what I have seen.’
The rock, which he then pointed out, was about two hundred
yards from where we stood. I collected the sportsmen and selected
three of them (my brother and two Moors upon whose courage I
could depend), and we determined to beard the lion in his den. My
left arm was in a sling, having been injured while playing cricket a
few days previously. As we advanced into the dense thicket I was
prevented, by the pain caused by the branches knocking against my
arm, from following quickly my companions. Carried away by their
desire to slay the lion, they rushed on headlong, regardless of wait-
a-bit thorns and other impediments; so I was left in the lurch. Feeling
uncertain about the exact direction they had taken, but hearing, as I
thought, the sound of some one passing in front of me, I shouted,
‘Where are you? why are you returning?’ No reply. Yet it was evident
the moving object had approached me within a very few yards. Again
I called, ‘Why don’t you speak?’ Then I heard a rush, as I suddenly
came to an open spot of sandy soil, upon which I could trace the
footmarks of the lion who had just passed. The animal had evidently
moved away from the rock when he heard or saw the three men
approaching, and having no desire to attack man unprovoked, had
doubled back, passing close to me. All this flashed through my brain;
I halted, kept perfectly still, holding my breath, for I had not the
courage, alone and with an injured arm, to follow the dread beast.
Moreover, I could never have caught it up, at least I tried so to
convince myself, and thus to hush any feeling of shame at my
cowardice.
My companions returned a few minutes afterwards, reporting that
they had reached the rock where the lion had been; but he had
evidently left on their approach, and they had tracked him through
the bush to the spot where I had stood when he passed. We
followed the direction the lion took for some time without success,
and we supposed he must have made off at a swinging trot.
The following day we heard that an ox had been killed on the hills
of Anjera between Tangier and Tetuan, and that the lion had gone in
the direction of the snow-topped mountains of Beni Hassén.
On each visit of a lion to the Tangier district the track of a hyena
had been seen to follow that of the sultan of the forest.
On one occasion, when there were rumours of a lion having been
heard of in the Tangier district, and we were out hunting boar in the
woods near Spartel, I heard several shots fired from the side of a hill
where I had posted the guns, and a beater shouting to me, as I stood
hidden behind a small rock in some low bush, ‘“Ya el Awar!”—Oh ye
blind! The lion to you!’ An instant after I viewed, bounding over the
bushes, a large shaggy animal. With its huge mouth open and
bristling mane, it looked very terrible; but I knew at once it was not a
lion; so I waited till the beast was within a few yards and sent a bullet
through its heart. It turned out to be a very large Hyena rufus—
striped, not spotted—larger than any specimen of that animal I have
seen in the Zoological Gardens or any menagerie.
The stench of the animal was overpowering; the skin was in
beautiful condition, and proved very handsome when preserved.
A grand lion was seen many years ago, standing in the early
morning on the sand-hills which line the beach close to the town of
Tangier, and causing great alarm. But it turned out to be a tame lion
which a ‘Shloh’ woman—who, as a Sherífa, was endowed with a
slight halo of sanctity—had brought captive from the Atlas
Mountains. She led it about with only a loose rope round its neck, as
she begged from village to village, and had arrived outside the gates
of Tangier the previous evening, after they were closed, and she had
laid down to sleep near the lion, which, during the night, had strayed
away. This lion was quite tame and harmless, and came back to her
from the sand-hills when she called it.
A Spanish gentleman told me that returning home late one dark
night from a party in Tangier, carrying a small lantern to light his way,
he saw what he fancied was a donkey coming towards him in one of
the very narrow streets of the town where two stout persons on
meeting can hardly pass each other. He turned his lantern on the
object, and, to his dismay, saw the glistening eyes and shaggy head
of a lion which he had already seen led in daytime by the woman
through the streets. The beast was alone, without its keeper. The
Don said he had never made himself so small as when he stood
against a closed door to allow his Majesty to pass; which he did quite
pacifically.
‘Oh ye blind! The lion to you!’
This accusation of blindness is perhaps the mildest form of abuse
employed by the beaters, in the excitement of the hunt, to the guns
posted to await the boar. Sir John, as Master of the Hunt, shared in
the very liberal abuse indulged in by the men who had laboriously
driven the boar from the thick coverts towards him and his friends,
native and foreign, who waited to shoot the pigs as they broke. Every
possible term of abuse—and Arabic is rich in such—together with
imprecations such as only Oriental imagination could devise, would
be yelled at them as a warning not to miss. Strangers too would
always be indicated by any peculiarity in their appearance or dress.
Neither did the excited beaters, at such moments, put any check on
their rough wit. But the railing of Moorish sportsmen at each other,
however violent in the ardour of the chase, is never resented.
As a case in point, Sir John related the following story.
A former Governor of Tangier, a thorough sportsman, was out
hunting on one occasion, when a man of low degree who was acting
as beater, and, as is usually the case, had his own dogs with him,
started a boar in the direction of the Basha, who was sitting near the
animal’s expected path ready to receive him. The beater called out,
swearing lustily at the Basha, and using every opprobrious term he
could think of; adding that if he missed his shot he should never be
allowed to fire again!
The Basha fired and killed the boar.
Some little time after, when the beat was finished, the huntsmen
assembled as usual, and the Basha asked who it was that had
started the boar he had shot. The poor beater, feeling he had
exercised the licence of the chase rather too boldly, kept somewhat
in the background, but, on this challenge, came forward and
acknowledged that it was he who had done so.
‘And what did you shout out to me when the boar took in my
direction?’ asked the Basha. The beater, dismayed, was silent. But
on the question being repeated, acknowledged having called out,
‘The boar to you—oh blind one!’
‘Only that!’ exclaimed the Basha. ‘Surely I heard you abuse me.
Tell me what you said.’
In reply to this the beater, in desperation, burst out with all the
abuse he had uttered. Whereupon the Basha, taking from his wallet
four ‘metskal’ (then worth some three Spanish dollars), presented
them to the beater, saying, ‘Take this. I know you were anxious on
account of your dogs, and for the success of the sport. I pardon your
abuse of me.’

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.

Body and Soul.


‘The death of the aged is always easy,’ said the F’ki Ben Yahia,
‘compared with the death of the young.’
‘This arises,’ continued the F’ki, ‘from the willingness with which
the immortal soul is glad to flee from an aged body, corrupted by a
long residence in this world, and from disgust at the sin and
wickedness into which it has been plunged by the depravity of the
body. Whereas, the young body and soul are loth to part; for the soul
rejoices in the innocent enjoyments of youth and the harmless
pleasures of this world, and to separate them is, as it were, to
separate the young damsel from her first pure love.’
‘Oh, merciful God!’ exclaimed the F’ki, ‘put away the corruption of
my body, and teach me to follow the purer inspiration of the soul
which was breathed into me by Thee, O Almighty and
Incomprehensible God!’

In Berwickshire, at Wedderburn Castle, a place then rented by


him, Sir John Hay Drummond Hay died on the evening of Monday,
Nov. 27, 1893.
He was buried in the churchyard of Christ Church, Duns. A few
days after the funeral one of the family received a letter from a
member of the British Legation at Tangier, in which he mentioned
that on going to the Legation on the morning of Nov. 27, he was
surprised to see the British flag at half-mast, and, calling to the
kavass in charge, reprimanded him for his carelessness, directing
him to take the flag down.
The kavass excused himself, saying that, while hauling down the
flag the previous evening, the halyard had broken, and he had
consequently been unable to lower the flag further; but that he had
sent for a man to swarm the mast and repair the halyard and thus
release the flag. This however, the writer added, was not
accomplished till next morning.
Thus it happened that while the man was passing away who for
forty years had represented Great Britain in Morocco, the British flag
remained at half-mast.
INDEX.

Abbas Pasha, 26.


Abbotsford, 3.
Abd-el-Hadi, 136.
Abd-el-Kader, 69, 71, 72.
Abd-el-Kerim, 227.
Aberdalgie, 6.
Aberdeen, Lord, 44, 66, 68.
Acre, 30.
Addington, H. C., 135; his letter to Sir J. D. Hay, 140.
Agadir, 317.
Agraz battle, 160.
Ahal Kubla tribe, 297.
Ahmed Ben Ali, 381.
Ain Dalia, 79.
Ain Diab wood, 392.
Ain-Umast fountain, 122.
Aisa, 228.
Aisawa, or snake-charmers, 177.
Aji, 236.
Akba el Hamra hills, 85.
Akhlij village, 292.
Alarbi el Saidi, 184.
Alcalá, 14.
Alexandria, 24.
Alfred, Prince, at Tangier, 203.
Alhádari, 147.
Alhucema, Island of, 148.
Ali Bufra, 241.
Alison, Charles, 49, 73.
Allen, Mr., 347.
Amar, Sheikh, 252.
Andersen, Hans Christian, ‘In Spain,’ 222, 225; his description of the old
Legation, 222; his letter to Lady Hay, 225.
Anjera, 186, 393.
Arab dance, 91.
Arára, 366, 374.
Argan tree, 122.
‘Arum arisarum’ or yerna, 325 note.
Ashkar, caves of, 364.
Assuad, Sultan, 99; inscription on his tomb, 99 note.
Athol, H.M.S., 6.
Atlas Mountains, 116, 272, 276, 289, 293, 390; valley, 290.
Austria, Emperor of, 363.
Awára plain, 185, 369, 371, 376.
Awínats wood, 376.
Azaila, 137, 242.
Azamor, 169.
Azdot, 142.

Bab-el-Haddad, or the Smithy Gate, 99.


Bab-el-Khemés, or the Thursday-gate, 111.
Bab-el-Mahsen, or the Government-gate, 289.
Bab Hamár gate, 107.
Bab Khadár, or ‘the Green Gate,’ 112.
Bakáli, Sheríf, 283.
Ball, Mr. J., 88 note.
Bankhead, Charles, 49.
Bardlaiimi, 129.
Barker, Mr. Burchardt, 16.
Barnett, Colonel, 63.
Barseset, Izak, 128.
Basha Hamed, 223.
Beehive, a Moorish, 195 note.
Beheira u el Gintsor, 269.
Bell, Dr., 23.
Ben Abd-el-Sadek, 364.
Ben Dawud, 275.
Ben Dris, the Grand Uzir, 113, 301; conferences with Sir J. D. Hay, 113, 115,
117.
Ben Isa, 376.
Ben Nasr, F’ki Sid Mohammed and Zarhoni, dialogue between, 81.
Ben Nis, 283.
Benabu, Governor of Tangier, 184; story of his arrest and death, 184-192; his
system of governing, 193.
Beni Aros, 210.
Beni Gorfet mountain, 242.
Beni Hassén mountain, 393; tribe, 90.
Beni M’suar mountain, 242, 371.
Benibugaffer village, 144, 146.
Benisargan, Jakob, 128.
Benshiten, 131.
Berbers, origin of the, 291.
Besika Bay, 60.
Beyrout, 30.
Birra Burub pass, 269.
Boar-hunting, 366-389.
Bojador, Cape, 317.
Bokhari guards, 119, 274.
Bonelli eagle, 367.
Borj Ustrak, 158.
Bosco, his sleight of hand, 33.
Briant, 43.
Brij, 368.
Brooks, Mr., 296.
— Mrs., 363.
Broussa, 51.
Bu Amar hill, 371.
Bubána river, 185.
Buceta, Colonel, Governor of Melilla, 149.
Buchanan, Mr., 208.
Bugeaud, Maréchal, 79.
Bulwer, Sir Henry, 68.
—, Mr., 67, 68, 70, 71, 185.
Buyukdere, 50.

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.

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