By: Jennifer Jun, Director of Strategic Partnerships and Communication
The Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI) has been awarded close to SEK 4 million from Formas – the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development for a three-year research initiative examining judicial responses to urban environmental displacement.
The project, titled “AdjuDisplace: Justice Sector Institutions and Urban Environmental Displacement – Towards an Anthropocene Legal Praxis”, is led by Dr. Matthew Scott, RWI’s Senior Researcher and Thematic Lead on Human Rights and the Environment. It will explore how justice sector institutions engage with the growing challenges of displacement in urban settings affected by climate change, environmental degradation, and governance failures.
Building on nearly two years of collaboration between RWI and partners including the Global Strategic Litigation Council, Earth Refuge, Cornell Law School, Zolberg Institute for Migration and Mobility, DLA Piper, and Eversheds Sutherland on the Climate Mobility Case Database, the project represents a major step forward in bridging research, practice, and policy on climate-related mobility.
By systematically consolidating case law on urban environmental displacement, the project will deliver both empirical insights and doctrinal analysis to inform legal practitioners, policymakers, and civil society actors. Its findings will support strengthening legal accountability, guide climate-adaptive urban planning, and enhance protections for communities facing displacement in this context.
The project will also support extended research stays at the Zolberg Institute for Migration and Mobility (USA), opening new opportunities for international partnerships and exchange.
Dr. Matthew Scott, Principal Investigator and RWI’s Thematic Lead on Human Rights and the Environment, emphasized the project’s importance: “Millions of people are displaced every year as the adverse impacts of climate change interact with social conditions of exposure and vulnerability. Displacement takes many forms, including short-term evacuation to longer-term or even permanent relocation of entire communities. Within these diverse contexts, disagreements arise between individuals, communities, local and national authorities, private sector actors amongst others. This research project sets out to catalogue and analyse the varieties of disputes that courts, national human rights institutions and other justice sector actors are called upon to resolve with the aim of describing an emerging Anthropocene legal practice on urban environmental displacement.”
Morten Koch Andersen, Head of Research at RWI, congratulated Dr. Scott and the team: “This project represents a major leap in our ongoing efforts to link human rights, law, and sustainability in the era of climate change. The recognition from Formas underscores the importance of understanding how justice institutions can help shape fair and effective responses to displacement in rapidly transforming urban environments. It also builds on years of groundwork by RWI and its partners — showing how collaboration and persistence can turn innovative ideas into transformative research.”
This new initiative exemplifies RWI’s commitment to addressing global human rights challenges through interdisciplinary research that bridges law, policy, and practice.
Learn more about RWI’s work in the thematic area Human Rights and the Environment at: https://rwi.lu.se/human-rights-and-the-environment-2/.