The Right not to be Displaced in International Law

Every year, millions of people worldwide are forced to leave their homes and become displaced due to a variety of causes, including conflict and persecution, development projects and natural disasters. This book explores the role of international human rights law in protecting people against involuntary displacement. It does so with reference to the idea of a ‘human right not to be displaced’, the central focus of the book, and examines its existence, desirability, content and enforcement. It starts with a discussion of the meaning of ‘displacement’ and clarifies how this phenomenon can be framed as a human rights issue. The following part deals with the question of how new human rights in general come into existence and under what conditions their creation or emergence is desirable. Against this background, the current status of the right not to be displaced in international law is thoroughly analyzed. The final part of the book examines the desired future for this emerging human right.

The author aims to contribute to a better understanding of the international legal framework for the protection of people against their forced movement, as well as to the search for more powerful, tenacious legal mechanisms to prevent or mitigate human displacement. While many works have been written on various legal issues surrounding the protection from specific forms of displacement, this is the first book treating the topic in a comprehensive manner, considering displacement broadly, approaching the issue from a rights-based perspective, and analyzing the complete framework of relevant normative developments at the international level.


‘Michèle Morel must be commended for applying for the first time a comprehensive analytical framework to a wide array of explicit and implicit prohibitions of displacement in international law showing that the 'right not to be displaced' can and should be constructed as an effective human right. She does so with great rigour, displaying not only a remarkable command of human rights doctrine, but also, and above all, a genuine commitment to the cause of the millions of displaced persons in today's world. This is a most welcome contribution to scholarship on internal displacement, and a testimony to the evocative power of international law.’
Prof. Walter Kälin, former Representative of the UN Secretary General on the human rights of internally displaced persons