Environmental migrants as victims of ‘ecological disorganisation’? Reflections from the OmoTurkana case study

This article argues that scholarship’s attempts to define and protect environmental migration based on a priori categories fail to grasp the complexity of the phenomenon. In particular, most (working) definitions do not recognise environmental victims or victims of ecological disorganisation, as environmental migrants, thus excluding them from recognition and protection. The article deploys an interdisciplinary analysis, based on international human rights law and green criminology to demonstrate that environmental victims may be forced to leave their country and be subjected to severe human rights violations akin to migrants fleeing natural hazards and disasters. Therefore, the article concludes that protection should not be based on labelled environmental causes of migration, rather on their consequences in terms of human rights violations.