re-examine what is required, what flexibility states and
the state system must acquire or enhance. It’s time to
address how sovereignty, by impeding ecomigration,
may add to the conflict-inducing pressures of climate
change. No piecemeal solution will do; a fundamental
paradigm shift is required. A planet of self-protective
climate change winners and increasingly threatened
climate change losers is ripe for conflict.
A new meaning of sovereignty must be devised,
one that promotes stability, security, and sustainabil-
ity—above territory—in a world in flux.
Environmental Dispossession
Environmental degradation, resource scarcity, and
climate change could generate migration on a scale
the international community is ill-equipped to pre-
vent or manage (Morton et al. 2008). Climate change
will produce complex impacts—direct, indirect, and
cumulative—with first, second, and third order social,
economic, and political consequences. The symbiotic
interaction among climate change, resource scarcity,
and environmental degradation will be pernicious.
By further upsetting the equilibrium on which sus-
tainability depends, it will complicate human security
and national security in ways with which we’re only
beginning to come to grips, and mostly too slowly to
mitigate in any appreciable way.
Emphasis has shifted to adaptation, where ecomi-
gration may play a positive and a negative role (Inter-
national Organization for Migration 2008b). Mishan-
dled, ecomigration may cause or aggravate conflict
by contributing to environmental degradation and
resource scarcity, increasing vulnerability (Morton et
al. 2008). Well managed, free of legal impediments,