Climate Change & Migration Symposium, 1st edition

This symposium is organised by the School of Law. It aims to develop a nuanced and multidisciplinary perspective on legal issues regarding Climate Change and Migration.

The changing climate and environmental degradation will have a significant impact on migration trends and migrant populations in the future. The potential magnitude of the problem has been increasingly addressed in domestic and international judicial decisions, statements by international bodies, and media reports. The relationship between climate change and migration, and the broader political, economic and social contexts in which the phenomena occur, is increasingly becoming an area of robust scholarly attention. The quest to understand how climate change and environmental degradation will affect societies going forward, including migration trends remains challenging. From a legal point of view, it raises complex questions about human rights protection, citizenship and statelessness, law of the sea, non-refoulement, and reparation, among others.

This symposium on Climate Change and Migration aims to develop a nuanced and multidisciplinary perspective on such legal issues. Situated in a broader context of climate justice, this symposium will bring together scholars across disciplines, including law, geography, political science and sociology. The symposium invites papers from different disciplines that engage with its theme, including, but not limited to, the following topics:

• The interaction of climate-related factors with political, economic, social conditions, including security and health, in shaping migration trends.
• The rights, recognition, and protection of displaced persons.
• Historical approaches to the environment-migration nexus, including the relationship between colonisation, climate and migration.
• Just transition, labour relations, and migration.
• Statelessness, statehood, and citizenship.

Symposium programme:

9.00 – 9.30 Registration
9.30 – 10.30 Opening remarks and plenary panel

• Ugochi Daniels, Deputy Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
• Patrícia Galvão Teles, Member of the United Nations International Law Commission and Professor of International Law, Autonomous University of Lisbon.

10.30 – 10.50 Presentation of report by IOM Ireland
Assessing the evidence: Migration, environment and climate change in Ireland.
10.50 – 11.15 Break
11.15 – 12.45 Panel 1: Framing the discourse on climate change and migration

• Sian Cowman (Maynooth University)
• Daniel Pakpahan (National University of Singapore)
• Manasa Sainidhi Venkatachalam (Blue Ocean Law)
• Maryam Yabo (Trinity College Dublin)

12.45 – 13.45 Break
13.45 - 15.15 Panel 2: Policy perspectives on the climate change and migration nexus

• Alejandra Díaz (University of Essex)
• Emily Cunniffe (Trinity College Dublin)
• Esmatullah Khyber (University of East Anglia)
• Rebecca Vining (Maynooth University)

15.15 – 15.45 Break
15.45 – 17.15 Panel 3: Legal approaches to the climate change and migration nexus

• Dave-Inder Comar (Leiden University)
• Inji Mammadli and Morgiane Noel (Trinity College Dublin)
• Emily Rowe (Human Rights Lawyer, London)
• Ronald Serwanga (International Development Law Organisation)

17.15 – 17.30 Closing

Please indicate if you have any access requirements, such as ISL/English interpreting, so that we can facilitate you in attending this event. Contact: mnoel@tcd.ie