Longstanding DS associate, Prof. Daniel Fitzpatrick of Monash Law School in Melbourne, Australia, has published a new book – Law, Property and Disasters : Adaptive Perspectives from the Global South, with co author Caroline Compton. Analysing the challenges posed by natural disasters and the mass movement of people, the book demonstrates that state-centred property law is ill-adapted to circumstances of mass human mobility. In a world affected by catastrophic disasters, the book develops a vision of adaptive governance for property in land. This book will appeal to a broad readership with interests in legal theory, property law, international development, refugee studies and natural disasters. It's a great book. Give it a read!...

  Less than half of the world's national Constitutions enshrine the legal right to adequate housing, despite the widespread recognition of this right within countless international and regional human rights instruments.[1]With a view to expanding constitutional recognition of this cornerstone right, Displacement Solutions has developed a model constitutional article on the right to adequate housing which we hope will assist constitutional drafters to insert this vital right into every future constitution throughout the world, beginning, we hope, with the Constitution current being drafted in the Republic of Chile. If you would like to be in touch, please contact us at: info@displacementsolutions.org. Model Constitutional Article on the Right to Adequate Housing   Section 1. The Right to Adequate Housing 1(1). Every woman, man and child has the right to dignified and adequate housing which is accessible, affordable, habitable, secure, safe, healthy, culturally adequate and in an appropriate location. 1(2). This right includes the right to equality of treatment and equal protection of the law, within an environment free from any form of racial or other discrimination. 1(3). This right constitutes a duty of solidarity for the nation as a whole. Any person or family unable to meet their housing requirements has…...

Whether we like it or not, the truth is that the money needed to prevent and resolve climate displacement has not been forthcoming and is unlikely to be for a very long time, if ever. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that 1.6-3.8 trillion (1.6T-3.8T) will be needed each year to avoid warming of more than 1.5C.]In 2021, global GDP is just shy of 93T. In 2009 the world's wealthy nations committed to channel USD 100 billion (100B) to less wealthy countries annually to tackling climate change, but to date have fallen far short from this target. Some have alleged that the estimates of the funds that have been raised thus far are wildly exaggerated, and that even if 100B were provided each year that this would come nowhere near solving the climate crisis. While calculations vary widely from only slightly more than 10B in total to just short of 100B, the prevailing understanding is simply that "Trillions of dollars will be needed each year to meet the 2015 Paris agreement goal of restricting global warming to well-below 2C, if not 1.5C, above pre-industrial temperatures.  A Climate Displacement Levy on the world's 2,800 billionaires at 1% of their respective fortunes…...

To everyone who is a parent and to those who are yet to become or may never become parents, what is one of the first things that parents seek to teach their young children? What life lesson does every parent notwithstanding their culture, religion, level of wealth or any other distinction, seek to impart to every child as a cornerstone of being a good person, doing the right thing, living as a kind human being? Of course, that first life lesson all across the globe is simply to do no harm, do not kill or hurt another human being. And close behind that basic part of what it means to be human is this: Do not steal. Do not take what is not yours to take. But in a world where in every culture, every legal system, every religion, every set of moral principles, everywhere stealing is seen as wrong, a crime and something for which people should be punished, there sure is a lot of stealing going on. And very much as is the case with the murder of another human being if you murder one other person you will likely go to prison for life no matter where…...