Colin Rajah, NNIRR, on Climate Migration at the World People's Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth

Colin Rajah, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
(NNIRR), talks about the Climate Migration Working Group here at the
World People's Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother
Earth, Cochabamba Bolivia, April 21, 2010.

Today, Joaquin S., Genaro, Colin and myself found ourselves in the working group session for Climate Migrants. 

There were seven major "acciónes" that are being proposed. These are my abbreviated notes on each point. By the end of the conversation we were at 8.

1. That the existing Conventions (on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families, and the Framework Convention on Climate Change) recognize and develop definitions for climate migrants.

2. To design global policies from the point of view of people, confronting climate change, making a systematic inclusion of affected communities.

3. Recuperate the cosmovision and ancestral technology - the vision for "buen vivir" (see, for example, http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/02/28/18639072.php) - and against development and developmentalism (cf. Sachs' new preface to the Development Dictionary)

4. Develop a convention (or protocol) on the human rights of migrants, that is able to be recognized as a global level.

5. Create an international organization that investigates the political, social, economic, cultural situation in relationship to climate change, and to monitor the implementation of existing rights.

6. An integrated economic fund around differentiated responsibility,

7. technology transfer, etc.

It remains to be seen is the strong suggestions from the assembled body will incorporate the strong rechazo - rejection - of development-based policies such as REDD, of the maltrato of refugees and asylum seekers, the rejection of the militarization of borders, or the criminalization of refugees and migrants. 

There was also a push to explicitly name the countries in the North who are not meeting current agreements - and that they should respect the current legal frameworks.

We also thought, Joaquin and I, that the rights frameworks asks nations to recognize and enforce human rights, and we know that even for "citizens" human rights are often not realized, and indeed that nation states are the locus of oppression, struggle, and human rights violations. So there are some real slippery slopes. 

This is especially true in the case of refugees and stateless peoples, vulnerable communities, and gender nonconforming folks.

Lastly, some words from the sister Yasmine from No Borders (UK). 

(see post below)

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