Perils of Transboundary Displacement on Environment

The movement of thousands of persecuted, leading to the formation of refugee camps, has led to sustained degradation of local ecology. There is very little in the current international refugee laws to protect these refugees other than forcing them to return to the place where they were persecuted. In such a scenario by the necessity of the hour, refugee bodies put urgent ‘humanitarian concerns’ over ‘environmental concerns’. This has led to host nations being less willing to receive more refugees. This chapter explores the deficiency in the present law where the host nation doesn’t have any measures to compensate for the damage caused by the refugees. It argues that there is a case of State Responsibility and a chain of causation where the nation responsible for causing the mass persecution should be accountable for its contribution to the deterioration of the environment. Thus, there are calls for a renewed perspective on the no-harm rule where refugee influx can be denoted as ‘Transboundary Harm’ caused by hazardous activity and lack of due diligence by the persecuting nation. Further, this chapter recommends the need for a mechanism for the host nation to sue the sending nation for the damages. This option challenges the popular extent of the Transboundary Harm caused by nation-states, but it roots towards the rules of state responsibility to use to fill the existing legal gaps and enquires about the possibility of a compensation scheme through reparations from the sending state, which can better place the refugees. Otherwise, this remains an Imperceptible Green Crime due to a lack of research and formal control. To deliberate upon the same, this chapter focuses on the plight of the Rohingya refugees. Their precarious situation vis-à-vis the environmental concerns of Bangladesh is delved into, arguing for the aforementioned ‘Compensation’ from Myanmar.