Fanny Thornton

University of Canberra · School of Law & Justice

Climate change impacts are gendered. This is also true for climate-induced migration, which affects men and women differently. On account of this difference, legal instruments and policies seeking to address and support climate-induced migration need to be gender-focused to address differentiated needs and outcomes. This paper looks at existing pol...

This briefing paper explores the ways in which the interplay amongst climate change, disasters, environmental degradation, and human mobility is reflected in Ethiopia’s current policy and legal frameworks. It aims to identify strategies for the improved management of population movements at the national level. Besides offering a concise summary of...

The article evidences to what extent rights-based climate litigation is applied as a strategy to enhance the recognition and protection of climate-induced migrants. Adopting a deductive approach and desk review, the study, illustrates how climate-induced migration has been addressed by International Human Rights Law, with some attention also paid t...

By presenting a range of outcomes which result from the impacts of a changing environment on human mobility patterns, the Foresight Report on Migration and Global Environmental Change emphasized that, whereas some people choose to stay in a specific location, others are simply unable to leave, leading to what the report termed “trapped populations”...

Climate mobility revolves around issues of justice and human rights, whether this be concerning its causes, expression or handling. This paper examines the justice-rights nexus as it relates to climate mobility, highlighting how the two spheres converge and diverge. It works with four case studies exploring the complexity of rights and justice in t...

We look at mothers who have lost parental responsibility and who have been ordered to spend no or at best minimal supervised time with their child(ren). Our case sample included 50 recent interim and final first instance judgments heard in the Federal Circuit Court or the Family Court, as well as 13 judgments from the Family Court of Australia Full...

What role could or should the law play in dealing with the climate emergency? In this innovative volume, leading scholars explore fundamental debates at the frontier of climate change law scholarship. They address the key areas of scholarly disagreement about what climate change law is, the legal rules it consists of, and how these rules could be i...

In light of the accelerating nature of climate change and its effect, it is unsurprising that various entities increasingly resort to courts and tribunals to seek to address the many harms and wrongs that clearly stem from climate change. This article discusses the opportunities in this context for those who face displacement by the effects of clim...

Planned relocation of communities exposed to climate hazards is an important adaptation measure. However, relocation planning and policies must recognize and support those who do not wish to relocate, particularly groups with strong place attachment and for whom relocation may increase, not reduce, vulnerability.

This paper explores Indigenous (im)mobilities in the Anthropocene, and their relationship to Pacific Islands climate activism. In a context where Indigenous peoples and perspectives are poorly represented in global climate politics, it is important to understand how Pacific people represent their own interests and imagine their own futures as press...

We look at mothers who have lost parental responsibility and who have been ordered to spend no or at best minimal supervised time with their child(ren). Our case sample included 50 recent interim and final first instant judgments heard in the Federal Circuit Court or the Family Court, as well as 13 judgements from the Family Court of Australia Full...

Research concerning human mobility in the context of environmental change is primarily focused on analyses of the nexus itself. We have taken a less-travelled route, focusing on those who take an interest in the issue, engage with it professionally or seek to address the multitude of social, economic and political dimensions associated with it. We...

This book applies a justice framework to analysis of the actual and potential role of international law with respect to people on the move in the context of anthropogenic climate change. That people are affected by the impacts of climate change is no longer doubted, including with implications for people movement (migration, displacement, relocatio...

Climate change is affecting Pacific life in significant and complex ways. Human mobility is shaped by climate change and is increasingly positioned by international agencies, policymakers, and governments as having an important role in both climate change adaptation and human development. We consider the potential for human mobility to promote adap...

The chapter discusses the concept of climate change refugees. Interest in who may move, where to, under what conditions and with what consequences in a world affected by climate change is substantial. The concept is nevertheless controversial, as its merits are easily challenged on methodological, legal, political or other grounds. The chapter disc...

Research into environmental migration or, as the authors phrase it, “people movement in the context of environmental change” has focused on understanding the phenomenon itself. However, it is timely to take a less-travelled route and instead study the experts focusing on environmental migration. This brief reports on an online questionnaire of 262...

This article takes as its starting point the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, an international instrument providing a procedure for pursuing the return of abducted children in domestic courts. The Convention applies to children habitually resident in a Contracting State immediately before their alleged wrongfu...

A B S T R A C T This paper presents an evolving typology of frames – filters of sense-making – to unpack how actors are interpreting and responding to the issue of environmental migration. We use frame analysis to draw attention to how a variety of actors define the boundaries of environmental migration, both intentionally and unintentionally, and...

International Environmental Law, Policy, and Ethics, by Gillespie AlexanderOxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2014, 224 pp, £60 hb, ISBN 9780198713456 - Volume 4 Issue 1 - Fanny Thornton

The thesis investigates how a justice framework is relevant to analysis of the role of international law in relation to climate change-induced human displacement. In particular, through the application of a justice framework, questions of responsibility will be explored. It will be argued that such a lens alters conceptualisations of the role inter...