A Missed Opportunity

– The Applicability of the Temporary Protection Directive and the Regulation on Addressing Situations of Crisis and Force Majeure in the Field of Migration and Asylum to Environmentally Displaced Persons

Abstract

In 2017, a total of 30.6 million people were forced to leave their homes worldwide, according to the UNHCR. More than half of these people – contrary to the popular belief – were not forced to leave their homes due to armed conflict, but due to a natural disaster. For this reason, the United Nations believes that states have a duty to provide humanitarian protection to all people. However, nation states take the view that those forced to leave their homes en masse pose a threat to the economic, social and political security of the host country. Often, however, they are unable to manage these security risks alone. In the meantime, the European Union provides a number of different legal aids to Member States, such as the 2001 Temporary Protection Directive. Since the EU was not able to adequately address the 2015 migration crisis with the available means, the European Commission announced in 2020 a New Migration and Asylum Package, which announced, among other things, the reform of the Directive, which would be replaced by a regulation on addressing situations of crisis and force majeure in the field of migration and asylum. The aim of the present study is to examine the purpose of the Directive and the Regulation and the possibilities of their application to persons forced to leave their place of residence due to a natural disaster.