Climate Change Induced Internal Displacement of People:

The United Nations has inculcated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) for the
purpose of protecting the fundamental human rights that is recognized universally. UDHR states
under Article 13 that “(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within
the borders of each State. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and
to return to his country” 1. From a utopian point of view, a world without borders seems like the
ideal solution to the problems faced by a considerable amount of people on Earth at present. A
world without borders, without political demarcation to distinguish people based on their race,
caste, color or any other social construct, without division seems like a distant dream for many.
In the grand scheme of things, what is not put into perspective is the difference in the plight of
internal displacement of people due to social factors and internal displacement of people due to
environmental chaos.
The Internally Displaced People (IDP) is a division of people that are dispersed within the
borders of the country due to the fear of multiple factors as mentioned before. Some factors fall
within the purview of social constructs such as religious cleansing, racial persecution, war,
genocide, armed conflict and so on. However, what happens more often, is the overlapping of
these factors. One such factor that is equally distinguishable is the environmental degeneration.
The frequency of displacement of people due to environmental degeneration has been constantly
peaking. But one such problem is so unpredictable as nobody can expect a natural disaster at any
point of time.
Who is an IDP?
As previously mentioned, IDP is a person or a set of people who are forced to leave their homes
in the name of persecution, armed conflict etc... The United Nations Commission on Human
Rights was presented a report containing a set of regulations and principles with respect to IDP
and in 1998, was put into effect as the Guiding Principles of Internal Displacement of People.
There is no universally recognized international agreements or conventions that regulate the
implementation of protection of IDP’s. Cer

1
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted 10 December 1948 UNGA Res 217 A(III) (UDHR) art 13