Ultrapassando fronteiras: a proteção jurídica dos refugiados ambientais

Abstract

The reader will find in this work an analysis of the institution of refuge, since its historical development in the international scenario up to its reflexions on internal juridical order. The refugee’s issue was studied according to the Globalization process. Also it was examined the situation of people spread around the world due to persecutions for several causes such as nationality, race, religion, political opinions, or just for belonging to a social group. Besides this work defends that the classical causes for recognition of refugee’s condition do not fit in the reality of the new political overview established especially from the effects’ aggravation of a financial and economic model which ruptured with the Nation-State’s old limits. It also proposes to widen the concept of refugee in order to reach other hypothesis not included in Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees adopted in 1951. It defends the inclusion in the refugee’s condition those human beings who are victims of catastrophes, natural or man-provoked, in other words, the environmental refugees. It discusses the category of the internally displaced persons who, according to the Convention of 1951, are not considered as refugees neither to international organizations nor to the countries which belong to the international community. It proposes an unified concept of the term refugee which includes both the refugees of the Convention of 1951 and the commonly called internally displaced persons. Finally, it presents the consequences of the adoption of an unified concept for handling of refugees and internally displaced persons.