ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for the need to recognize and protect environmental refugees at the European Union (EU) level. It also lays out an assessment of the limitations and loopholes that exist in the current EU regulatory framework in light of these challenges, and in the way the EU responds internally and internationally in seeking institutional mechanisms to strengthen migration governance in the context of the global environmental crisis. In order to examine these issues, the chapter first addresses the root causes of the migrant crisis in the EU and its consequences. This allows us to secondly focus on the legal and political aspects of environment-related migration and on the extent to which the current framework of the EU’s asylum and migration policy offers adequate responses, internally and internationally, to environmental migration. Accordingly, the third part of the chapter explores the current limitations of the EU to cope with environmental migration. These limitations contribute to the difficult situation in which people who help migrants, including victims of environmental degradation, are exposed to lawsuits, arrest, and violence. Finally, given that the current legal framework grants potential relief, the chapter sets out a series of proposals and specific arrangements that are needed by the EU to adapt its current migration policy and regulatory framework in order to protect and defend the human rights of people on the move due to environmental degradation.
