New DS Report (!) – Courtrooms and Climate Change

14 December 2020

Article, Media Release

New DS Report (!) - Courtrooms and Climate Change: The Current State of Play - Global attention to the question of climate change, including climate displacement, has expanded dramatically over the 15 years since Displacement Solutions initiated our efforts to find concrete, rights-based and land-based solutions to this crisis. One area, in particular, that has seen considerable advancement in recent years is the growing scope of judicial attention to various aspects of the climate change question, spanning international, regional and national institutions. More than 1,500 cases have been filed addressing various aspects of the climate crisis over the past several years, and as a result, a rapidly growing body of case law is emerging from judicial organs that collectively give a sense of which climate change issues adjudicative bodies are willing to address, as well as the extent to which such judicial (and quasi-judicial) decisions are having a real world impact on the environmental and human impacts of global warming and all of its effects. Our new 218-page report - Courtrooms and Climate Change: The Current State of Play - explores some of the leading cases decided thus far and how judges and lawyers in countries as diverse as the Netherlands,…...

Two Amazing Guests on Two New Podcasts – Listen Now!

7 July 2020

Please have a listen to Episodes 24 and 25 of the podcast Jointly Venturing - Let's Talk World Citizenship hosted by DS Director and Founder, Scott Leckie. In Episode 24 we speak with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, Cecelia Jimenez-Damary, about her extraordinary efforts to assist the growing IDP populations scattered across the planet. In Episode 25, which has just been released, we speak with the world's leading judge responsible for some of the most important climate change cases to reach courtrooms to date, New Zealander Bruce Burson. Please tune in here to have a listen - https://open.spotify.com/show/5ltnbn1Hdy2T80ul0HNrsU - as well as iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Apple Podcasts. Better yet, subscribe, follow and write a review - it really helps! Episode 26 will be recorded this week where we host the world renowned 'Dictator Hunter', Reed Brody. Be sure to tune in!...

Podcast on the Climate Crisis in the Marshall Islands

1 June 2020

  The most recent episode of the podcast Jointly Venturing - Let's Talk World Citizenship, hosted by DS Director and Founder in his capacity as Founder of Oneness World Foundation, explores the climate crisis in the Marshall Islands. In a wide-ranging conversation with Guillaume Charron of Independent Diplomat, Episode 22 covers the history of the Marshall Islands, the present challenges facing this large ocean nation, and what the future holds for one of the main frontline states in the battle against rising seas and global warming. You can listen (and subscribe) here: https://soundcloud.com/user-893508577/episode-22-their-present-of-our-future-climate-challenges-in-the-marshall-islands The Marshall Islands need our support! Please do whatever you can!...

Climate Land Bank Idea Gets Major Boost in New ADB Report

7 August 2019

Article

A new report on Promoting Affordable Housing in Yangon, Myanmar published by the Asian Development Bank has, among other recommendations, urged the government of Myanmar to consider establishing a National Climate Land Bank to proactively address the looming climate displacement crisis in the country. The report notes that "Myanmar’s housing sector is struggling to cope with rapid urbanization, internal migration, and new demand from recent economic growth. These challenges are most apparent in the Yangon Region, where estimates suggest there will be a housing shortage of 1.3 million units by 2030. This publication assesses the current housing market situation in Yangon. It identifies reform options and offers practical recommendations to support the Yangon Region Government’s implementation of its affordable housing agenda and related policies." With a specific recommendation to establish a climate land bank, the report continues "The central importance of land for security, stability, and economic development is already well-recognized by the present government and by all organs of civil society, which have commenced identifying state land resources for eventual distribution to landless rural poor households as part of broader land reform efforts. In this context, the establishment of the MNCLB would be a further element of broader land…...

The People of Myanmar Need National Agreement on Restitution

24 February 2019

Article

A new 76-page report prepared by DS Director Scott Leckie with the collaboration of Jose Arraiza of NRC, with the support of the Joint Peace Fund, outlines the components of what an eventual agreement in Myanmar on housing, land and property restitution could look like. The report, entitled BUILDING AGREEMENT ON RESTITUTION RIGHTS WITH THE MYANMAR PEACE PROCESS AND NATIONAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK examines all of the necessary components that would need to find recognition within an eventual national agreement designed to ensure that everyone with a viable HLP restitution claim could submit these to an independent judicial body with enforcement powers strong enough to ensure the full enjoyment of restitution rights throughout all corners of the country. Millions of people with legitimate restitution claims have yet to be able to have these claims heard by judicial bodies with the power to enforce these claims to return to, recover and/or re-inhabit the homes and lands from which they have been forced to flee over the past several decades. The report points out that HLP restitution rights are widely recognised in international law, and that many other countries have adopted restitution laws and procedures as key elements within peace processes and the…...

DS Director Interviewed on the 70th Anniversary of the UDHR – Listen here!

11 December 2018

  DS Director Scott Leckie was interviewed on 10 December 2018 on Australian Radio station 3CR on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and how human rights are affected by the effects of climate change. Have a listen here: https://audio.3cr.org.au/3cr/beyond-zero-community/2018/12/10/1700/201812101700_beyond-zero-community_64.mp3...

The Guardian reports on climate displacement in Myanmar

4 November 2018

Article

Have a look at Libby Hogan's article 'We feel like hermit crabs': Myanmar's climate dispossessed, published on 1 November 2018 in The Guardian. The article is one of the first published by international media sources focusing on Myanmar's latest displacement crisis, that of looming and massive climate displacement. DS Director Scott Leckie was interviewed for the article which also explores the need for the government of Myanmar to establish a national climate land back to deal effectively with climate displacement. You can access the article here: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/nov/01/we-feel-like-hermit-crabs-myanmar-climate-dispossessed....

DS & NRC Report – Restitution in Myanmar: Building Lasting Peace, National Reconciliation and Economic ProsperityThrough a Comprehensive Housing, Land and Property Restitution Programme

13 October 2017

  http://issuu.com/displacementsolutions/docs/dis5244_ds-nrc_restitution_in_engli?e=31296948/54230902 http://issuu.com/displacementsolutions/docs/dis5244_ds-nrc_restitution_in_engli?e=31296948/54230902...

Interview with Scott Leckie on DS efforts to find solutions to climate displacement

9 August 2017

Video

In this video Displacement Solutions' director, Scott Leckie is interviewed on the activity we're undertaking around the world to combat climate-based displacement. Scott's significant experience in housing rights and land restitution provide him a unique vantage point in assessing both the problems inherent to, and the solutions necessary to tackle this growing problem. "No-one wants to move" he offers, but with sea-levels rising at higher-than-expected rates, there's little choice. "We need to find somewhere in the range of 12.5 to 50 million acres of land, globally" he tells the interviewer from the Graduate Institute Geneva. View the whole interview here...