People move in a variety of ways in the context of disasters and climate change. Some people will move short distances within their own countries or even cities or districts. Other people might move longer distances, including across international borders. We combine academic expertise and networks across Asia-Pacific, Africa and Europe, and conduct research, develop digital and blended learning modules for university as well as professional education, and contribute to policy dialogues around the world.
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Matthew Scott
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
Human Rights and the Environment staff
Matthew Scott
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
Mo Hamza
Mo Hamza is Professor of Risk Management and Societal Safety at Lund University, Sweden. In his career spanning 36 years so far, he has worked with international development organisations including: World Bank, ADB, UNDP, UNISDR, USAID, DfID, IFRC, IUCN, Swedish Red Cross, and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB).
His primary areas of professional expertise and research work are: Disaster risk and vulnerability reduction, climate change impact and adaptation in fragile and failed states, environmental displacement and refugees’ decision-making on mobility. Previously he was Chair of Social Vulnerability Studies at the United Nations University, Bonn, Germany; a Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sweden and an advisor to the MIT Climate CoLab. He has undertaken consultancy and research work in: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, UK, South Eastern Europe and the Balkan States.
He is currently an advisor to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) where he is responsible for their capacity development processes. Among various and more recent publications, Mo Hamza is the co-editor of the upcoming ‘Rebuilding Communities after Displacement’ book published by Springer Nature; was the co-guest editor of a double special issue in Global Discourse Journal (2022) ‘Critical Exploration of Crisis: Politics, Precariousness and Potentialities’, and the author of ‘Refugees’ Integration in the Built Environment – The Sweden Case’ in Sustainability Journal 2021. He was also the lead author and editor of the World Disasters Report (2015) ‘Focus on local actors, the key to humanitarian effectiveness’.
For further updates on his research, please refer to his Research profile:
Sinem Kavak
Sinem Kavak is a postdoctoral researcher at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and a research affiliate in Center for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) at Lund University. She holds a PhD in Political Science and International Relations earned at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris Saclay in France and Boğaziçi University in Turkey. Her research areas are in fields of political economy, extractivism, migration and refugee studies as well as human rights issues in labor markets. She also carries research on themes related to critical agrarian studies and rural/environmental movements.
Before joining RWI, she held various academic positions on political economy research with human rights implications as well as professional appointments in the broader field human rights practice and advocacy. She was visiting postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Sustainability Studies at the Lund University; she worked as program coordinator and researcher for the Fair Labor Association in Eastern Europe and MENA region and she acted as Turkey expert for Council of Europe in the area of trafficking of human-beings for the purpose of labor exploitation.
Her research cuts across human rights issues around decent work, child labor, refugee experiences and transnational labor governance as well as macro-level issues of democratic backsliding, authoritarianism, cronyism, extractivism. Her publications appeared in New Perspectives on Turkey, Journal of Agrarian Change among others and she co-edited the volume on Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Resistance in Turkey: Construction, Consolidation and Contestation published by Palgrave McMillan (2022). Geographically, she focuses on Turkey, Lebanon and Colombia.
Currently, she is carrying out two research projects.
- Refugee Decision-making in First Countries of Asylum (ReDeFi)
- Unraveling Climate-change Impacts on Migrant Farmworkers in Global Food Production
For further updates on her research please refer to: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sinem-Kavak
https://portal.research.lu.se/sv/persons/sinem-kavak-2
Rakel Larsen
Rakel Larsen joined RWI in November 2020 as the Director of the Nairobi Office. She brings more than 15 years of work experience in refugee protection, displacement and human rights mainly from Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to joining the RWI, she worked for the Danish Refugee Council with humanitarian response and protection of refugees and other displaced persons in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan.
Furthermore, she holds a Master’s in Law and a Master’s in African Studies (Human Rights and Development) from the University of Copenhagen.
Danang Aditya Nizar
Danang Aditya Nizar has years of experience working in the international development sector, with various thematic areas such as education, youth engagement, disaster risk reduction, displacement, gender, and sustainable agriculture.
He started his career in the sector with UNOCHA, supporting the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency in preparing the Disaster Risk Management Baseline Status Report, as mandated by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. He also has experience in emergency response, where he was deployed to implement a Displacement Tracking Matrix with IOM during the Mt. Agung eruption in 2017. He was also a certified trainer of camp coordination and camp management modules with IOM.
Danang holds a Master’s degree in Anthropology of Development and Social Transformation from the University of Sussex, UK, with a specialization in refugees, displacement, and humanitarian response.
In his spare time, Danang Aditya Nizar remotely manages a bed and breakfast in Bukittinggi, West Sumatera.