‘Climate refugees’: Legal and policy responses to environmentally induced migration

This study sets out to examine the legal and policy aspects of climate and environmental related displacement. It assesses to what extent the current EU framework for immigration and asylum, in general, and the specific instruments in regard to asylum, in particular, already offer adequate response to climate induced displacement and how the legal framework could evolve in order to provide an improved response to the phenomenon of environmentally induced migration. The study also clarifies the way in which such a modified legal framework can be rooted in the Lisbon Treaty including the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.