The Brookings Institution-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement Risks and Rights: The Causes, Consequences, and Challenges of Development-Induced Displacement by W. Courtland Robinson An Occasional Paper May 2003 Risks and Rights: The Causes, Consequences, and Challenges of Development-Induced Displacement by W. Courtland Robinson THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION – SAIS PROJECT ON INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20036-2188 and 1717 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 555, NW, Washington DC 20036 TELEPHONE: 202/797-6145 FAX: 202/797-6003 EMAIL: [email protected] FOREWORD Each year, millions of persons are forcibly displaced by development projects, whether dams, roads, reservoirs or oil, gas and mining projects. While such projects can bring enormous benefits to society, they also impose costs, which are often borne by its poorest and most marginalized members. As author W. Courtland Robinson points out, “for millions of people around the world—development has cost them their homes, their livelihoods, their health, and even their very lives.” Impoverishment and disempowerment often become their lot, with particularly harsh consequences for women and children. Although internally displaced persons are often defined as those uprooted by conflict, human rights violations and natural or human-made disasters, they also include those displaced by development projects. Indeed, Robinson points out: “While victims of disaster—especially natural disaster—generally are the focus of sympathetic attention and international aid (as are many of those displaced by conflict), the same cannot be said for victims of development-induced displacement, although the consequences may be comparably dire.” In an effort to better understand the plight of those displaced by development projects and the relationship of this kind of displacement to international human rights and humanitarian frameworks for dealing with internally displaced persons, our Project asked the author to examine the nature and scope of development-induced displacement and to identify the international institutions and remedies that might prove effective in addressing this question. We are most grateful to Court Robinson for the extensive research he has done and for his comprehensive report, which was reviewed at a meeting of international experts, held in Washington DC on December 5. We are confident that the report’s recommendations will contribute to the international response to this major public policy challenge. In particular, we would note that the report calls for a global consultation that would bring together the development as well as human rights and humanitarian communities to harmonize operational guidelines and policies applicable to development-induced displacement. We express deep appreciation to Michael Cernea, author of the World Bank guidelines on involuntary resettlement, who encouraged our Project to address the issue and expertly guided us in doing so. We thank Walter Kaelin as well for his valuable legal advice. We are also grateful to Simon Bagshaw, Leopoldo José Bartolomé, Dana Clark, Dolores Koenig, Erin Mooney, Peter Penz, Bjorn Pettersson, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, and Scott Robinson for their valuable comments on the paper. In addition, Lanfranco Blanchetti-Revelli, Daniel Bradlow, Maria Da Cunha, Loretta Feris, Maninder Gill, Susan Martin, Anthony Oliver-Smith, Christopher McDowell, Balaji Pandey, and Maria Stavropoulou ably participated in the expert group which met to review the paper. Kavita Singh assisted the author by researching and documenting many of the case studies. Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli developed a comprehensive bibliography, which is appended to the report. Kristin Janson and Marianne Makar helped with the organization of the expert meeting and, together with David Fisher, served as rapporteurs. Special thanks also go to Charles Driest for his fine editorial assistance. The author has asked that appreciation be expressed to Roberta Cohen for her guidance in the development of the paper. The views expressed in the paper are those of the author alone and should not be attributed to the Brookings-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement or to the trustees, officers or other members of the Brookings Institution or of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Roberta Cohen Francis M. Deng Co-Directors Brookings-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement ABOUT THE AUTHOR W. Courtland Robinson is a Research Associate at the Center for International Emergency, Disaster and Refugee Studies at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. He has been involved in the field of refugees and forced migration since 1979, working with the Indochina Refugee Action Center in Washington DC; the Consortium Program (Save the Children, World Education, and the Experiment in International Living) in Thailand; the U.S. Committee for Refugees in Washington, DC; and the Asian Research Center for Migration at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. He has served as a consultant to a variety of humanitarian organizations, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mercy Corps, Catholic Relief Services, and the Burmese Border Consortium. He is the author of numerous studies on displacement, including Terms of Refuge: The Indochinese Exodus and the International Response (Zed Books, 1998). More recent research interests include North Korean famine mortality, the demography of forced migration, and demographic methods in emergency assessment. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1 CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS ....................................................................................... 4 Refugees.................................................................................................................................... 5 Internally Displaced Persons..................................................................................................... 6 Disaster-Induced Displacement ................................................................................................ 9 Development-Induced Displacement...................................................................................... 10 CASE STUDIES ...................................................................................................................... 15 Water Supply .......................................................................................................................... 15 Urban Development and Transportation Infrastructure.......................................................... 18 Energy..................................................................................................................................... 20 Agriculture and Natural Resources......................................................................................... 22 Population Redistribution Schemes ........................................................................................ 23 GUIDELINES AND STRUCTURES FOR RESPONSE.............................................. 26 International Financial and Development Institutions............................................................ 28 United Nations and Other International Organizations .......................................................... 36 National Institutions................................................................................................................ 47 Non-Governmental Organizations.......................................................................................... 49 Private Sector.......................................................................................................................... 50 APPLYING THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES ON INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT................................................................................................................... 51 The Guiding Principles ........................................................................................................... 52 Conclusions and Recommendations ....................................................................................... 54 ENDNOTES.............................................................................................................................. 60 APPENDIX Selected Bibliography on Displacement Caused by Development Projects by Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli ............................................................................................. 72 INTRODUCTION Like becoming a refugee, being forcibly ousted from one’s land and habitat by a dam, reservoir or highway is not only immediately disruptive and painful, it is also fraught with serious long-term risks of becoming poorer than before displacement, more vulnerable economically, and disintegrated socially.1 Most large forced dislocations of people do not occur in conditions of armed conflict or genocide but in routine, everyday evictions to make way for development projects. This “development cleansing” may well constitute ethnic cleansing in disguise, as the people dislocated so often turn out to be from minority ethnic and racial communities.2 While it may have as many meanings as people who invoke its name, development generally has positive, though perhaps ambiguous, connotations.3 Uneven development is a bad thing and sustainable development is a good thing but, for the most part, under-