Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or places of habitual residence for a variety of different reasons, but who have not crossed a state border. IDPs are amongst the most vulnerable groups of people in the world. They flee for many reasons, including conflict, violence, human rights violations, and disasters, and often lack adequate shelter, food, clean water, healthcare, and education. We are now witnessing the largest global IDP population on record, numbering 59.1 million at the end of 2021. With the expected impacts of climate change and without ambitious climate action, the numbers will likely increase in the coming years.
In June 2022, the UN Secretary-General’s Action Agenda on Internal Displacement called for states to develop and implement ‘relevant laws and policy frameworks to address IDPs’ rights.’ Maynooth University’s School of Law and Criminology responded to this call by hosting its first workshop on IDP law and policy on 2 February 2022.
The workshop was organised by Dr Bríd Ní Ghráinne, Associate Professor at the School of Law and Criminology. It gathered participants from various disciplines, countries, and career stages to showcase their research and gain detailed feedback from their peers. Papers presented included:
- ‘Durable Solutions for IDPs: Normative Anchors in International Law’ by Deborah Casalin, Law and Development Research Group, University of Antwerp, Law Faculty
- ‘Activating the 1998 UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement in the Context of Slow-Onset Climate Change’ by Ben Hudson, University of Exeter
- ‘Conceptualising Obstacles to Local Integration’ by Rebecca Enobong Roberts,Habitat Unit, Technische Universität Berlin
- ‘International Law: A Tool for Responding to the Climate Change-Internal Displacement-Human Trafficking Nexus?’ by Gillian Kane, Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway
- ‘In the Pursuit of an Adequate Response to Internal Displacement Resulting from the Interaction of Conflict and Disasters’ by Beatriz Eugenia Sánchez-Mojica, IE Law School
- ‘Towards a Local Governance of Internal Displacement: proposing a new research agenda’ by Melissa Weihmayer, London School of Economics
- ‘Not only a Problem in Exile: Risks of Statelessness for Syrian Children Born in Internal Displacement Contexts’ by Thomas McGee, University of Melbourne
The outputs of the workshop will be published in a series on the Researching Internal Displacement Platform.