The Follow-Up and Review Mechanisms of the Global Compacts: What Room Is There for Human Mobility in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article offers a good contribution to existing knowledge examining how States translated their commitments under the Global Compacts with respect to HMDCC. So after placing HMDCC in international law and policy, it then examines the content of the commitments with respect to HMDCC in the Global Compacts, and the follow-up/review mechanisms devised to monitor the implementation of the Global Compacts.

It would be interesting to know more on the legal implications and mechanisms to make the principles contained in the Compacts enforceable and effective in practice. The paper sounds at times quite descriptive and gives an overview of the HMDCC as a subject, which is entirely regulated by non-binding mechanisms, resolutions, framework principles, recommendations (with the exception of few conventions signed by a limited number of States, such as UNDCC). While recognizing that the GCR would not be the right forum to recognize a new international protection status, it would be a valid addition to the literature if the author could expand a bit more on the projects of conventions and how the implementation stage might lead to the development of dedicated policy and legal responses on HMDCC.

In analysing the implementation of the GCM with respect to HMDCC, I wonder whether there have been cases in which States went beyond the adoption of national implementation plans opting for changes, not only in their national migration policies, but more substantively in their constitutions (encompassing for instance references to environmental protection).

Overall, rather than a descriptive account of future implications, a more critical assessment would be desirable on the potential of legally binding instruments, such as the draft Convention based on the articles on the protection of the persons in the event of disasters; as well as a more critical analysis of the impact the recent case law and the newly-elaborated right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment might have on addressing certain aspects on HMDCC.

Author Response

Many thanks for your amazing comments! In order to add a systematic reading of the Global Compacts, I have made the necessary changes in the manuscript. Now, I hope the article is more critical and less descriptive. All the best, Aylin.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper provides a detailed overview of recent developments concerning the right to mobility in the context of disasters and climate change. It describes developments leading to the conclusion of the Global Compacts, the measures that the Compacts foresee, and how states have responded to them. A particular focus on in the commitments by various states and NGOs, which are described as having undertaken “diverse” measures, “from improving data gaps and statistics to incorporating migration considerations into the frameworks on managing the impacts of climate change and disasters.” (p.9)

Overall, the paper provides a very good descriptive overview of these developments, albeit a relatively positive one (and perhaps even too positive one).

One of the following issues should in my view be addressed before the article is published, however.

The theoretical foundation. As the article stands, it is atheoretical. It uses primary documents to develop a narrative on how actors have responded to, and developed commitments from the more than vague prescriptions of the global compacts. This provides an informative overview, but it is not analytically interesting. To evaluate the extent of the commitments, it would be necessary to describe more systematically what the global compacts actually expect from member states and the international community. Is this just promotional or does it contain hard commitments? If it is just promotional, it is hard to see how other actors can develop legal commitments out of them. This could still be an interesting research question: What are they focusing on giving highly vague language? This could then be used to describe those commitments more systematically. Ideally, it should be linked to the list (on p. 7-8) of state commitments, and proceed in a topical manner: some states might focus more on research, others on data gathering, still others on relocation measures. This mapping could then be used to explain how actors are responding to the global compacts.

Without theoretical foundation. A different approach would be to evaluate the commitments from the perspective of the commitments and what the situation requires. This requires some point of objective point-of-view, allowing the author to evaluate the range and extent of commitments by states and other actors. Are these sufficient to address the crises? At the moment, the author simply describes these commitments and argues that “more work needs to be done to implement all dimensions of the commitments.” (p. 9) So this appears to be the standard against which commitments are being evaluated, the dimensions. But in order to make this statement intelligible, it is again necessary to analytically describe those dimensions, and measure in some way (not even in numbers) the distance between those dimensions and the commitments. Ideally, this should come when the HMDCC is being introduced, followed by (again) a more analytically description of the measures that states and other actors have announced. This would also guard against a too optimistic evaluation of the state commitments.

Absolute minimum threshold of revisions. The author should make clear what is standards of evaluation is. As it stands, the bar seems to be quite low. States do address HMDCC, so this is impressive. But there might be other standards. The author needs to make clear, why s/he does not heighten the bar.

Author Response

Many thanks for your amazing comments! In line with your suggestions, I have now added a systematic understanding of the commitments (based on four groupings, namely, prevention, protection, cooperation and facilitation). I really hope that this contributes to making the article more critical. My upcoming book, titled Climate Change, Disasters and People on the Move: Providing Protection under International Law (Brill, November 2022) proposes a theoretical framework. I hope the focus of this article, which is the implementation of the commitments, is an important contribution to literature.