Since 2017, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute (RWI) has, together with academic partners, been conducting a regional thematic study on displacement in the context of disasters and climate change in ten countries across the Asia-Pacific region. The countries include China, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines, Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. The study set out to gain insight into the varieties of disaster- and climate-related displacement in the region, and to enhance understanding of the role played by international human rights standards and guidelines, as well as national legal and policy frameworks, in addressing the phenomenon as it is experienced in concrete situations.

Structuring the approach on the 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, RWI considered how the national legal and policy frameworks in the ten countries addressed the prevention of displacement, protection of people during displacement, and the facilitation of durable solutions. RWI supported academic partners to conduct field research that explored how local actors actually addressed a particular instance of displacement.

The result is a series of reports that shed light on how states in the region are addressing this phenomenon. The Background Brief sets out key international standards and guidelines relating to displacement in the context of disasters and climate change. The Background Brief serves primarily as an introduction to the series of ten law and policy reports, each of which focuses on the domestic framework addressing displacement in the context of disasters and climate change.

Furthermore, this study has informed a book chapter from the edited volume Climate Change, Disasters, and Internal Displacement in Asia and the Pacific: A Human Rights-Based Approach, published by Routledge. Access the chapter, or order the volume directly from Routledge.