Climate Change and Migration: Evaluating Legal Status, Protection Gaps and EU’s Response to the Climate-induced Displacement

This research analyses the relation between “climate change and human mobility” is considered, more specifically the legal status of people who have been displaced due to environmental hazards and the protection voids of the “European Union (EU) law”. The paper applies a doctrinal analysis, supplemented by a comparative methodology, and asserts that climate change is a “threat multiplier” amplifying forced displacement, but the current international refugee regime based on the “1951 Refugee Convention ” does not provide a conclusive status to so called “climatically displaced persons (CDPs)”. The paper examines the internal and external responses of the EU, such as the “Qualification Directive, the Temporary Protection Directive and the European Green Deal ”, and it discloses that the EU depends on the national practices that are dissimilar instead of having a unified “EU-wide protection regime”. Overall, the major key findings reveals that despite the inclusion of a human rights law, specifically “Article 3 of ECHR” and the “principle of non-refoulement”, which presupposes a complementary way, the lack of substantive enforcement persists, which makes it evident that the proactive integration of the legislation, as well as the recognition of migration as the process of adaptation, are necessary.