Kieren McGuffin

Kieren McGuffin’s PhD was entitled ‘Environmentally-related displacement in the context of climate change’.  The thesis focussed on: a) an interdisciplinary assessment of the complex, multi-faceted nature of environmentally-related displacement (and displacement more generally); b) the structure and nature of state obligations under relevant international legal instruments (these instruments considered included international refugee law and human rights based complementary protection regimes, international human rights law with a particular focus on the extra-territorial dimensions of economic social and cultural rights protections; c) obstacles to the extension of protection for environmentally-related displacees under existing legal regimes and/or via the creation of new international legal instruments; and d) lessons to be learned from other areas of international law, notably the structure of international environmental law bodies/instruments. Building on these foundations Kieren’s current research addresses irregular migration more generally, with a particular focus on the concept/nature of ‘vulnerability’.