FMAs & Climate-Induced Migration
By Ama Francis
The Caribbean region is particularly at risk in relation to climate-induced migration. The ten countries and territories worldwide with the highest average annual internal displacement per capita are all small island developing states (SIDS), the top six of which are located in the Caribbean. Although SIDS experience lower absolute displacement risk compared with more populous countries like India and China, SIDS experience significant displacement relative to their population size. For example, IDMC reported before Hurricane Dorian (2019) that 5.9% of Bahamas’ population will be annually displaced by hurricanes. Hurricane Dorian destroyed nearly half the homes on Great Abaco and Grand Bahamas islands. The 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season also demonstrates the extent of displacement risk in the Caribbean; three major hurricanes of the season—Harvey, Irma, and Maria—displaced approximately 3 million people in a single month.
While the Caribbean region is particularly susceptible to displacement risk, the region also reveals a framework for addressing climate-induced migration; that is, Free Movement Agreements (FMAs). FMAs are provisions within (sub-)regional economic integration schemes that liberalize migration restrictions between participating member states. Two FMAs embedded within the (sub- )regional economic integration schemes, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), granted displaced Caribbean nationals important protection benefits after catastrophic hurricanes.
The application of FMAs in post-disaster contexts is possible in other regions. More than one hundred countries worldwide participate in FMAs like CARICOM and OECS. FMAs can facilitate migration prompted by both slow- and sudden-onset disasters and provide access to rights of entry, work, and resettlement to climate migrants. FMAs therefore offer a protection stop-gap in the absence of a governing legal framework for addressing climate-induced migration. Although recent international processes like the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Sendai Framework for the Disaster Risk Reduction have underscored the importance of climate-induced migration, there is no comprehensive multilateral framework on the issue, and international law guarantees no protection to climate migrants who fall outside the scope of international refugee law. Regional solutions are useful in closing this climate-induced migration protection gap.
Read the report FMAs & Climate-Induced Migration in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.