Abstract
While scientists warn that a number of Indo-Pacific islands will submerge by 2050, the media are actively reporting on the already disappearing lands. What does it mean for the people of these ‘unlucky’ regions, who are often amongst the poorest and with the least adaptive capacity? One of the officially pronounced adaptation responses is planned relocation. Yet, due to its enormous human rights costs and its negative past experiences, the idea of planned relocation is generally met with little enthusiasm. The strategy remains undeveloped and the way it is carried out remains unclear. This article aims to change this situation and to fill the gap within the existing legal research on human rights that are at risk during planned relocation. It argues that a forward-looking human rights-based approach is a tool that can extensively contribute in sustaining these endangered rights and ultimately in strengthening the value of planned relocation as an adaptation strategy.
Highlights
‘I still remember that fateful day, when I lost everything’[1] This could be an intriguing prologue from a TV drama, but sadly, this is a quote from a real interview with one of the former residents of Lohachara Island – the island whose submergence was reported by Indian researchers in December 2006.2 Jyotsna Giri had been living on Lohachara Island for more than forty years, had a family and quite a successful household there
In case other feasible mitigation and adaptation measures have been exhausted and the only remaining option is relocation, a human rights-based approach presents a number of questions to be taken into account through the planning and implementation of planned relocation as an adaptation strategy: 2) Are people induced to relocation well informed about the risks and threats they are facing? 3) Do these people realize the necessity to resettle and agree with it? 4) Are affected people sufficiently involved in the discussions, planning and implementation? As the example of Tuvalu has demonstrated, when people are not convinced of the necessity to move and are greatly reluctant to leave, their relocation breaches the right not to be forcibly evicted, as it will be carried out against people’s will
This article has demonstrated that a rejection of planned relocation is to some extent justifiable, since this strategy can lead to enormous human rights violations
Summary
‘I still remember that fateful day, when I lost everything’[1] This could be an intriguing prologue from a TV drama, but sadly, this is a quote from a real interview with one of the former residents of Lohachara Island – the island whose submergence was reported by Indian researchers in December 2006.2 Jyotsna Giri had been living on Lohachara Island for more than forty years, had a family and quite a successful household there. Brown claims that: ‘[S]o far the publicized examples of forced migration caused by anthropogenic climate change are more anecdotal than empirical, affecting a few hundred or thousand people at a time.’[21] Likewise, Barnett, mentioning the need for community resettlement as one of the extreme responses to climate change, still argues that ‘despite some speculations in media and environmental community, such relocations are unlikely to be necessary in the coming decades.’[22] In line with that, McAdam suggests that when talking about the issue of inundation in Tuvalu and Kiribati, ‘the movement away from the island States (...) is likely to be slow and gradual,’[23] and that ‘small island States such as Kiribati and Tuvalu will become uninhabited long before they physically disappear’.24 These considerations are well founded and demonstrate that planned relocation is not necessarily the only possible scenario for disappearing territories.
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