In 2022, IDMC estimated that approximately 225.3 million people were internally displaced in the Asia Pacific region between 2010 and 2021, comprising about 78% of global displacements during this period. This highlights the heightened vulnerability of the Asia Pacific region to displacement. Weather-related hazards emerged as the primary driver of internal disaster displacement in the region, with floods and storms accounting for approximately 211.8 million displacements during this period, equivalent to 99.2% of total weather-related internal displacements. It is worth noting that the actual number of individuals experiencing mobility due to climate-related factors, including displacement or other forms of human mobility, is likely higher.
Against this backdrop, RWI has been supporting partners since 2017 to mainstream a human rights-based approach in addressing the interlinkages between climate change, human mobility, and human rights in Asia Pacific. This support has been through the implementation of projects, namely the Regional Asia Pacific Programme on Human Rights and Sustainable Development (RAPP 1) and the Building Resilience through Inclusive and Climate-adaptive Disaster Risk Reduction in Asia-Pacific (BRDR). Both projects were supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and managed through RWI’s Regional Asia Pacific Office in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Additionally, RWI facilitated the establishment and operationalisation of the Asia Pacific Academic Network on Disaster Displacement (APANDD). This network comprises Asia Pacific scholars with expertise in disaster displacement and, more broadly, in climate-related mobility.
Get in touch
Matthew Scott

Matthew Scott
Leader of the Human Rights and the Environment Thematic Area
E-mail: matthew.scott@rwi.lu.se
Matthew Scott is senior researcher and leader of the Human Rights and the Environment thematic area at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. He is also associate professor and adjunct senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Lund University. His work focuses on integrating social science perspectives with international legal standards to promote context-sensitive, human rights-based law, policy and practice relating to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. This work is guided by the Framework for Integrating Rights and Equality (FIRE), which he has pioneered through a series of collaborations with academic and development partners in Asia-Pacific, Africa and Europe. His primary area of expertise concerns human mobility in the context of disasters and climate change, on which he has published widely. Current research and programming interests concern urban climate-related human mobility, building resilience to pandemic risk, and rights-based climate adaptation using the FIRE framework.
He holds a PhD in Public International Law from Lund University and a MA in Social Anthropology of Development from SOAS. He practiced immigration and asylum law in London before entering academia. He is a member of the advisory committee of the Platform on Disaster Displacement and the editorial board of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law, and a founding member of the Nordic Network on Climate Related Displacement and Mobility and the Asia-Pacific Academic Network on Disaster Displacement.
At Lund University he convenes the introduction to human rights law course and the short course on human rights law, the environment and climate change on the LLM in international human rights law programme. He also lectures on the MSc programme in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
For further updates on his research, please refer to his Research profile:
https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/matthew-scott
- dfiFeatured: a:1:{i:0;s:0:"";}, a:1:{i:0;s:0:"";}, a:1:{i:0;s:0:"";}, a:1:{i:0;s:0:"";}, a:1:{i:0;s:0:"";}
- inline_featured_image: 0
HQ: Lund Office
Opening hours: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM