Deutsche Welle: Scott Leckie on the worrying transition of Myanmar

March 18

in Article, Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma, Commentary News, Displacement, Forced Displacement, Global Update, HLP Rights, Interview, Myanmar, Scott Leckie

Germany’s international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, has recently published aninterview with Displacement Solutions Director, Scott Leckie, on the apparent failings of Democracy Darling Aung San Suu Kyi and the Myanmar Government to protect it’s citizens during this tumultuous transition towards opening up of the country and resultant greater economic freedoms by allowing prolific land-grabbing to take place.

Leckie gives a frank assessment of the situation at hand and adds that the fate of the country lies in it’s leaders ability to take decisive and lasting action for the benefit of it’s citizens.

Read the article in full.

Climate Displacement Law Project: Towards an International Legal Standard

March 06

in Bangladesh, Burma, Climate Change, climate displacement, Forced Displacement, Global Update, government policy, HLP Rights, housing, Human Rights, international law, Kiribati, Maldives, Projects, Refugee, Scott Leckie, Tuvalu, Vanuatu

Rarely, if ever, has humanity dealt with an issue the magnitude of climate change displacement.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and many other groups warn that the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels, ever-heavier floods, more frequent and severe storms, drought and desertification, will cause large-scale population movements across the globe.

While no one knows for certain just how large this displacement may be, it is clear that this will measure in the many tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people. Displacement of this sort is not something that will happen one day, but something that is happening today.

Through our work in Bangladesh, Fiji, Kiribati, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu and beyond, Displacement Solutions has been working for several years on how best to resolve climate displacement in a rights-based manner.

Losing a home or source of income is traumatic enough for those affected but when the issue is compounded a hundred thousand-fold on a global scale, with no clearly-identifiable person or government body to blame or to pursue for aid, people become faceless numbers and are swept away, without consideration, compensation or assistance, during the next unseasonal rains.

Many countries that either currently, or within the foreseeable future, bear the brunt of these climactic changes and resultant displacement have been tirelessly advocating for more international attention and action on their plight.

These countries’ governments and others, including Costa Rica, Germany, Mexico, Norway and Switzerland, are – through the Nansen Initiative (which DS is pleased to be associated with) currently involved in reviewing existing international legal standards and protection measures with the implication they are not sufficient to protect the human rights (including their housing, land and property rights) of people displaced internally within their country of residence or beyond their country’s borders.

Displacement Solution’s Climate Displacement Law Project comprises a series of objectives designed to solidify an acceptable international-standard legal framework for climate displacement law, assisting governments to legislate locally on these issues, expanding law school and university attention to these themes and other targeted activities with climate-affected communities. This will be achieved through the drafting of an international soft-law standard on climate displacement, global advocacy for the proposed standard, and the publication of a major academic book on the issues concerned.

Visit the Climate Displacement Law Project website

Interview with DS Director on Radio Australia Asia Pacific

April 23

in Climate Change, Displacement, government, Kiribati, Relocation, Scott Leckie

DS Director, Scott Leckie, spoke with Heather Jarvis on Radio Australia Asia Pacific on 18 April, 2012 about the intended use of land purchased in Vanua Levu, Fiji, by the Government of Kiribati. This interview follows significant coverage of Kiribati President Anote Tong’s plan for ‘dignifed migration’ for the i-Kiribati people in the face of rising sea levels and the many other challenges climate change has brought the island nation. In this interview he discussed a number of relocation and adaptation issues relating to climate displacement in these areas, in particular, addressing the need for investment in both domestic social services in the short to medium-term and long-term planning that may include off-shore solutions. Listen to the interview here.

Interview with DS Director in Volume magazine

February 22

in HLP Rights, Interview, Post-Conflict, Scott Leckie

In this recent interview of Scott Leckie, the DS Director discusses his fifteen years of work in post-conflict countries and how war and its aftermath inevitably undermines housing, land and property rights. To access it, click here.

DS Director Addresses COHRE Housing Rights Event

December 20

in Displacement, HLP Rights, Human Rights, Presentation, Scott Leckie

DS Director, Scott Leckie, was invited by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) to speak about his role in establishing COHRE in 1991 and his efforts at international human rights standard setting over the past two decades. In his speech, which was delivered from Australia via Skype to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, where the meeting was held, Scott gives a personal account of his decision to create COHRE, the motivations that drove the organization in its early years and its pivotal role in changing the international legal landscape. You can access a draft of his speech here.