Introduction
The impact of migration on conflict is a man-made
problem; the way migration is managed (or not) can
determine its potential for mitigating or escalating a
conflict (Leuprecht 2008-2009, 38).In one very particular way—migration—climate
change will test the resilience of states. Unmitigated,
the impact could weaken the international system,
both inducing and leaving it more vulnerable to armed
conflict (McKinley 2008). The test will come if climate
change, already a main threat to maintaining progress
in human development (United Nations Development
Programme 2010), forces very large numbers of people
to look for stable, secure, and sustainable conditions
elsewhere. The test will become critical if migration
crosses borders, such as will occur if island nations
disappear beneath rising seas or if states or parts of
states become uninhabitable and fracture or fail.
Uncontrolled movement of people across borders
is anathema to sovereignty. International law makes
little allowance for forced migration. The complexity
of and slow pace for making international law com-
pels us to ask whether a sustainable state system can
be maintained if we do not start soon to make room
for environmentally dispossessed peoples.
The international system was not designed for and
cannot peaceably accommodate migration on the scale
that climate change, combined with other factors, may
produce. Under international law, states enjoy a near
absolute sovereign right to control migration. His-
tory, both ancient and modern, amply illustrates the
inclination of states to jealously guard the preroga-
tives of territorial integrity and inviolable borders.