Forced Migration and Refugee Policy

This chapter focuses on international, regional and national legal norms, policies, organizational roles and relations and good practices that are applicable to a broad range of humanitarian crises that have migration consequences. These crises and the resulting displacement differ by their causes, intensity, geography, phases and affected populations. The chapter examines movements stemming directly and indirectly from: persecution, armed conflict, extreme natural hazards that cause extensive destruction of lives and infrastructure; slower onset environmental degradation, such as drought and desertification, which undermine livelihoods; manmade environmental disasters, such as nuclear accidents, which destroy habitat and livelihoods; communal violence, civil strife and political instability; and global pandemics that cause high levels of mortality and morbidity. Demographic trends are themselves drivers of displacement in conjunction with other factors. This can play out in two ways—demography as a macro-level factor and demographic composition as a micro-level driver of movement. The chapter compares the paucity of legal, policy and institutional frameworks for addressing crisis-related movements with the more abundant frameworks for addressing the consequences of refugee movements. The chapter discusses the policy implications of the findings, positing that State-led initiatives such as the Nansen and Migrants in Countries in Crisis initiatives are useful mechanisms to fill protection gaps in the absence of political will to adopt and implement more binding legal frameworks. It also argues that, in the context of slow onset climate change, in particular, there is a need for better understanding of how population density, distribution and growth as well as household composition affect vulnerability and resilience to the drivers of displacement.