Environmental Migration in Asia-Pacific Regions: Could We Hang Out Sometime?

Abstract

Several proposals for global legal governance of environmental migration have recently been published, almost exclusively by Western scholars. The present article shows the distance – both the geographical distance and the intellectual isolation – between descriptive works on environmental migration as a phenomenon and the normative studies on necessary developments of law and governance. It suggests that this distance resulted in a postcolonial approach of environmental migration, which could impede the protection of environmental migrants. While recalling that governance of environmental migration is generally most likely to succeed in the regional arena, this article argues that Asia-Pacific regions should determine the content of regional legal approaches of environmental migration. Participating in a multi-civilizational discussion is a unique opportunity for rising regions of Asia and the Pacific to affirm their growing diplomatic role and to demonstrate their capacity to be instrumental in the development of liberal forms of transnational governance.

Keywords: environmentally induced migration, climate migration, climate refugees, Asia and the Pacific region, Asian values, regionalism, third world approaches to international law, TWAIL