This book chapter analyses the legal avenues through which environmental refugees from Bangladesh can receive protection in India, specially focusing on the Right to Life in the Constitution of India, and Indian case law on asylum seekers and refugees.
Author
Tarini Mehta, Associate Professor, Jindal School of Environment & Sustainability, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Summary
Bangladesh faces a number of environmental challenges and hazards-floods, sea level rise, soil degradation, droughts, to name a few-resulting in the displacement of thousands each year. Floods alone displace over a million people on average annually. Many victims of environmental disasters cross the border into India looking for refuge and a new life.
This chapter analyses the legal avenues through which environmental refugees from Bangladesh can receive protection in India, specially focusing on the Right to Life in the Constitution of India, and Indian case law on asylum seekers and refugees.
It argues that the Right to Life together with the customary international law principle of non-refoulement could be a powerful and effective means to protect environmental refugees in India.
Published in: Veronica Fynn-Bruey and Steven W. Bender (eds.) Deadly Voyages: Migrant Journeys Across the Globe. Lexington Books, London, pp. 197-214
To read the full book chapter, please click here.
