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Recommendation 1862 (2009)
Environmentally induced migration and displacement: a 21st-century challenge
1. Referring
to its Resolution 1655
(2009) on environmentally induced migration and displacement:
a 21st-century challenge, the Parliamentary Assembly draws attention
to the numerous activities carried out by the Council of Europe
in relation to the environment and migration.
2. It welcomes the work the Committee of Ministers has previously
undertaken in elaborating the European Convention on the Legal Status
of Migrant Workers (ETS No. 93) as well as in promoting the 1998
United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, leading
to the adoption of Committee of Ministers Recommendation Rec(2006)6
on internally displaced persons. These recommendations are in line
with the Guiding Principles, which include “persons displaced from
their homes or places of habitual residence due to natural or man-made
disasters”.
3. The Assembly recalls the Council of Europe's duty to promote
the universal protection of human rights for all vulnerable groups
and to improve, whenever necessary, legislation to this end. It
encourages member states to assume a pioneering role in standard
setting in the field of protection of people compelled to leave their
homes mainly or exclusively for environmental reasons.
4. The Assembly is concerned about the gaps in international
human rights and refugee law, which leave various categories of
people who flee environmental disasters within their own countries
or by crossing international borders, including European borders,
without adequate legal protection.
5. It is equally concerned that people in Europe have no specific
legal remedy against environmental degradation and climate change,
due to human activity, that affect their health and safety.
6. Consequently, the Assembly invites the Committee of Ministers
to:
6.1. launch a dialogue among
its member states with a view to promoting understanding of the existence
and scale of the problems related to environmentally induced migration
and encouraging concerted action. This action should aim at either
improving the existing international protection framework or complementing
it with new binding instruments, and prioritise the challenges of
prevention, adaptation and development as integral elements of any
international response;
6.2. set up a working group, in co-operation with other European
institutions, to carry out a comprehensive legal study on the gaps
in existing international law and normative regulations with a view
to an eventual elaboration of a European framework convention for
the recognition of the status of environmental migrants, should
this be deemed necessary;
6.3. consider adding a new protocol to the European Convention
on Human Rights (ETS No. 5), concerning the right to a healthy and
safe environment; such a protocol would introduce the precautionary
principle into the Convention and would reflect the way the concept
of “human rights” has evolved since the Convention was drafted;
6.4. continue to urge member states to incorporate the United
Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the 13 principles
elaborated in Recommendation Rec(2006)6 of the Committee of Ministers
in their national legislation;
6.5. encourage the United Nations and its other relevant partners
to seek avenues for extending the Guiding Principles to include
people displaced by gradual environmental degradation, and to consider developing
similar guiding principles or guidelines to cover the rights of
those moving across international borders for compelling environmental
reasons (“external displacement”);
6.6. avail its expertise on legal, environment and migration
issues to the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee working
group or any other international co-operation body whose purpose
is to set standards for the protection of environmental migrants;
6.7. adopt a recommendation calling on member states to develop,
as part of their spatial planning policies, a common European approach
to preventing and managing extreme climate events as the main cause
of environmental migration;
6.8. encourage dialogue between environmental, migration and
demographic research centres in Council of Europe member states
to widen and deepen the understanding of root causes of environmentally
induced migration;
6.9. give priority to the actions of the Council of Europe
Development Bank that contribute to protecting and improving the
environment. Projects that provide appropriate responses to urgent
needs and to sustainable preventive action on environmental deterioration
with a long-term perspective should be particularly supported;
6.10. support, in co-operation with international and financial
institutions, the development of programmes to help the public adapt
to the inevitable effects of climate change so as to reduce migration flows
resulting from environmental factors.