Shrinking Spaces of Humanitarian Protection

The Syrian crisis continues to kill and uproot. More than six million people have been internally displaced, while well over five million have fled the country - with the majority residing in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Like the spaces of civilian political agency in different parts of the world, ones of humanitarian protection also seem to be shrinking in some of the main refugee-hosting states in the Middle East too. Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey have taken in millions of Syrian refugees since the beginning of the Syrian war. All three countries followed an open-door policy in the first phase of the Syrian conflict, assuming that the uprising would be as short-lived as its precedents in Tunisia and Egypt. All three states have implemented a temporary protection regime, on the one hand providing fast and relatively non-bureaucratic refuge for Syrians fleeing while on the other excluding them from the special protection that comes with official refugee status. All three states have experienced the shocking disinterest of the international community in the Syrian crisis, which became most apparent in the enduring and severe underfunding of aid efforts in the region. All three states have since almost completely reversed their initial policies, with border closings, migrant criminalisations, and refoulement becoming regular practices. The movement out of the region and towards supposedly "safer" areas like the European Union has engendered a vicious circle of migrant deterrence and pressure on transit states, in which the refugees themselves are mere pawns. The continually progressing walling-off policies of the Global North increase the likelihood of Syrians staying in Jordan, Lebanon, or Turkey. Many would like to return home to rebuild their lives. It is, however, unclear how they will fare if Syria - where the war is still ongoing - is reconstructed in cooperation with the old regime and its cronies. Both internal and external actors need to recognise this in their efforts to reconstruct the state

Blaming Nature: Legitimising the Mismanagement of Natural Resources

Climate change is progressing fast and is undeniably a man-made disaster. Its impacts - heatwaves, floods, sea-level rise, melting ice caps, erratic rainfall, desertification, and similar - are likely to worsen in intensity and increase in frequency for many years to come. While the question of why measures to halt climate change are not fully implemented is not easily answered, it is necessary to reflect meanwhile on the strategies employed by governing actors to legitimise such inaction. One such strategy is the attempt to ignore the "human" aspects of natural disasters, like bad governance and mismanagement, a process called "ecologisation." Climate change lends itself easily to this. By presenting drought, floods, and other extreme weather events as "natural" and thus "beyond our control," governing actors can deflect responsibility for their mismanagement and bad governance regarding natural resources. This has happened in Syria, for example, following the prolonged drought occurring in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Political Ecology provides key knowledge on how these problems can be constructed as "environmental" or "natural," how such "environmental" situations can be positioned as unprecedented and disastrous, and how framings like these may support ulterior political goals. Somewhat counterintuitively, it may be necessary to "de-naturalise" phenomena that have been attributed to climate change to uncover the broader sociopolitical impetuses behind them. With the fight over a possible trade-off between climate action and human rights already ongoing, policymakers need to learn how to both identify and address "ecologising moves." One way of doing this is by strengthening civil society actors who are identifying and calling out such moves, often under existential threat

Transforming environmental conflict through discourse, illustrated by the Israeli- Palestinian water conflict

In Israel and Palestine, a natural water scarcity is exacerbated by the overall political conflict. On the one hand, the regional climate is arid to semi-arid, resulting in frequent droughts. Inefficient water utilisation, growing population numbers as well as continuing economic development and urbanisation further increase water needs and amplify existing scarcity. On the other hand, two of the river Jordan’s headwaters, Banias and Hasbani, rise outside of Israel’s internationally recognised borders. The Palestinians have no access whatsoever to the river Jordan, limited access to the ground water resources and are widely dependent on Israeli allocations. Since 1967, the bulk of the natural water resources are under Israeli control. As a result of these specific conditions, water scarcity is perceived as a cause for (violent) conflict in both the Israeli and the Palestinian society. This manifests in conflictive discourse structures, like the discursive securitization of water scarcity for varying referential objects. Water is perceived and categorized differently by the two conflicting parties: While Palestinians regard the natural water resources as sufficient in principle and the existing scarcity as entirely politically induced, the Israelis perceive the natural water resources as absolutely scarce while receiving major desecuritization impulses from the possibility of desalination. On both sides, the dominant discourse structures underscore the conflictive issues regarding the distribution of water between Israelis and Palestinians, thus making communication, let alone negotiation, downright impossible. It is exclusively in the respective (minor) counter discourses that possible starting points for dialogue and conflict resolution are visible. With communication – verbal and non-verbal, direct and indirect – at the bottom of every conflict, the reality of Israeli-Palestinian water discourse needs to be taken into account with regard to conflict resolution approaches in the region. This has not, however, been taken into account by conflict resolution practitioners as yet

Migration and Conflict in a Global Warming Era: A Political Understanding of Climate Change

This special issue explores underrepresented aspects of the political dimensions of global warming. It includes post- and decolonial perspectives on climate-related migration and conflict, intersectional approaches, and climate change politics as a new tool of governance. Its aim is to shed light on the social phenomena associated with anthropogenic climate change. The different contributions aim to uncover its multidimensional and far-reaching political effects, including climate-induced migration movements and climate-related conflicts in different parts of the world. In doing so, the authors critically engage with securitising discourses and resulting anti-migration arguments and policies in the Global North. In this way, they identify and give a voice to alternative and hitherto underrepresented research and policy perspectives. Overall, the special issue aims to contribute to a critical and holistic approach to human mobility and conflict in the context of political and environmental crisis

Forced Migration in the Global South: Reorienting the Debate

As of 2017, 65 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced by war and political violence. Several millions more have fled because of environmental disasters and socio-economic marginalisation. As there is no immediate end in sight to this steadily increasing global trend, forced migration is one of the central challenges in world politics today - and it is very likely to remain so in the near to medium-term future. Only a small (albeit increasing) proportion of forced migrants have managed to come to the Global North. The main flows take place within and between Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. A focus on South–South displacement thus represents not only a more pluralistic, but also a more accurate picture of global forced-migration trends. The most visible drivers of forced migration are war and political violence. While Syria stands out in this regard, the country also shows that conflict-induced displacement is often intertwined with forced migration resulting from environmental disasters and the adverse effects of development projects. Disaster-induced displacement denotes population movements in the wake of global environmental change, including fast-onset events such as floods, storms, or fires, and slow-onset events, such as droughts, land degradation, and sea-level rise. With its low-elevation islands, the Pacific region of Oceania is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels. Development-induced displacement results from socio-economic exclusion as a result of large-scale infrastructure projects, mining, deforestation, urbanisation, and biosphere projects. The case of India underlines that many development-induced forced migrants are typically internally displaced. As forced migration continues to occur mostly within the Global South, it is necessary to better understand its causes, dynamics, and effects in Africa, Asia, ­Latin America, and the Middle East in their own right - and not primarily or even exclusively in terms of the implications for the Global North. Also, when drafting policy responses to forced migration, a holistic understanding of the complex interlinkages between conflict-, disaster-, and development-induced drivers and dynamics precludes one-size-fits-all approaches

Perceiving Migration Crises: A View from the European Neighbourhood

For a long time now, "crisis" has been the dominant trope in European discourses on migration. This perception is extremely Eurocentric, as migration to the European Union is minimal compared to other world regions. How do non-EU states such as Tunisia and Turkey, which are bound to the EU through neighbourhood policies and agreements, view not only migration movements perceived as "critical" within the EU but also the ensuing migration agreements? Tunisian media discourses on the EU migration deal of June 2018 show that Tunisian political analysts are aware that the "migration crisis" is actively constructed by political actors in the EU for the latter's own political gain. In Tunisia itself, no such "crisis" was diagnosed - at least in media discourse -despite the high and rising number of forced migrants entering the country. Instead, political reporting focused on local domestic crises and on Tunisia's mediating role within the neighbouring conflict in Libya. Similarly, the reporting in Turkey on the negotiations leading up to the joint EU-Turkey statement of March 2016 shows an acute awareness of European constructions of a "migration crisis." Despite Turkey's rapid development from a migrant-sending state to one of the most important host states for forced migrants in the world, Turkish media reporting focused on local issues and conflicts and on Turkey's strategic interests in the Syrian conflict. EU perceptions of migration as a crisis and discrepancies between a rhetorical commitment to humanitarian values and real-life actions are carefully received and critically evaluated in neigbouring states, highlighting the need to better understand perceptions of the EU, as this can be expected to impact future cooperation. The EU should build knowledge on local and national discourses on migration in (potential) partner states; reflect upon who gains from the narrative of forced migration as a "crisis" both within and outside of the EU; and address severe protection gaps for refugees and migrants in partner states when negotiating cooperative migration governance

Drought, flight, conflict: “climate migration” as a driver for conflict?

Research on security-related aspects of climate change is an important element of climate change impact assessments. Hamburg has become a globally recognized center of pertinent analysis of the climate-conflict-nexus. The essays in this collection present a sample of the research conducted from 2009 to 2018 within an interdisciplinary cooperation of experts from Universität Hamburg and other institutions in Hamburg related to the research group “Climate Change and Security” (CLISEC). This collection of critical assessments covers a broad understanding of security, ranging from the question of climate change as a cause of violent conflict to conditions of human security in the Anthropocene. The in-depth analyses utilize a wide array of methodological approaches, from agent-based modeling to discourse analysis

Wasser und Sicherheit: Zwischen Konflikt und Kooperation

Wasser ist eine existenzielle Ressource. Sie ist essenziell für die sozioökonomische Entwicklung, gesunde Ökosysteme und das menschliche Überleben im Allgemeinen. Industrialisierung, wachsende Nachfrage, Übernutzung und Degradation (Verschlechterung) von Böden sowie die Folgen des Klimawandels setzen die Süßwasserressourcen jedoch zunehmend unter Druck. So ist der weltweite Wasserverbrauch laut UN-Water, einer Unterorganisation der Vereinten Nationen, seit den 1980er Jahren um etwa ein Prozent pro Jahr gestiegen, und ein Ende ist nicht in Sicht. Daher wird die Liste der Regionen, die unter unzureichender Wasserversorgung leiden, immer länger. Weltweit leben derzeit über zwei Milliarden Menschen in Staaten, die unter starkem Wasserstress leiden, und vier Milliarden leiden an mindestens 30 Tagen im Jahr unter schwerer Wasserknappheit