Climate Migration to the Russian Federation from a Legal Perspective Itself in Continuous Development

 

Nikita Gonta[1]

Peking University School of Transnational Law

I. Introduction

With numerous catastrophic effects, climate change threatens to increasingly displace countless people around the world. The impending impacts range from entire states disappearing as a result of rising sea levels to nearly one-third of humanity staying in extremely hot and uninhabitable areas, according to most extreme projections.[2] At the same time, projections indicate that due to global warming, the climatic conditions in Russia, which as the northernmost nation-state is largely covered with permafrost, should generally improve.[3] Global warming is already changing the climatic living conditions in Russia: 63 percent of the land was considered unfavorable for living between 1961 and 1990; between 2001 and 2010 the rate decreased to 50 percent.[4] The warming rate in Russia is two and a half times faster than average across the globe,[5] which not only brings a set of severe impacts of its own domestically but also opens up new room for living in the world’s largest country. According to a recent long-term forecast by researchers of Princeton University, the best international strategy to adapt to global warming would be for people to migrate from areas that have suffered from climate change to areas that have been less affected or benefited from it.[6] Russia appears as a land promised for climate migrants, which allows for the notion that the vast Russian expanse is an asset of all mankind, presenting not only an advantage but responsibility of the country, but which at all events makes it necessary to think now about what is to come.[7]

This paper elaborates the international and national legal developments that are leading towards an anticipated legal basis for future climate migration to Russia. In the process, the paper analyzes the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration[8] (Global Migration Compact) and the Concept of State Migration Policy of the Russian Federation[9] (State Migration Concept). Drawing conclusions on the national and international levels, this paper argues: The State Migration Concept does not substantively prepare for transborder climate migration to Russia, however, it makes flexible actions possible to the Russian state. Here, international law, apart from (regularly inapplicable) human rights and refugee law, does not bind the policy discretion of the Russian state when it follows the roadmap set by the Global Migration Compact.

II. Developing Field of Public International Law on Climate Migration

1. Introducing the Central Legal Document in International Migration Law

The Global Migration Compact occupies a unique place in international climate migration law in particular as well as in international migration law in general. International climate migration law lacks specific international agreements but consists mostly of regional instruments,[10] showing in its development that this is a relatively new problem for the international community,[11] and provides protection today through a patchwork of legal documents.[12] Moreover and more generally, international migration law is characterized by a complex interaction of international and national instruments and agreements.[13] At the international level, universally accepted and comprehensively regulating treaties are lacking,[14] while at the national level, the sovereign decision as to who may enter national territory is preserved by international law. Without affecting the latter longstanding principle at hand of sovereign states,[15] the Global Migration Compact addresses the former shortcoming existing in the international arena.[16] For the first time, it covers very widely, although not exhaustively,[17] global migration in a single agreement as the most encompassing framework in the field to date,[18] having been adopted in 2018 by 164 United Nations (UN) member states, including Russia. Based on and framed by existing international law in general and human rights in particular, the Global Migration Compact reaffirms existing legal frameworks but does not create new legal obligations,[19] serving as a road map to frame the international agenda.[20] In the process, it stands alongside the Global Compact on Refugees, which was developed in parallel and likewise presents not legally binding soft law.[21] The Global Migration Compact aims to improve the regulation of migrations at the local, national and global levels and to reduce the vulnerability of migrants, including those who find themselves in this status due to climate change.[22]

By locating climate change in the Global Migration Compact rather than in the Global Compact on Refugees,[23] climate-displaced persons are classified as migrants rather than refugees.[24] There is only a small group of people displaced by force whom other countries are universally obliged to protect under international law: refugees, stateless persons, and those eligible for complementary protection under human rights law.[25] There are many different terms for the type of migrants in question here, not falling under either of the mentioned protected categories directly: environmental migrants, forced environmental migrants, environmentally induced migrants, environmentally motivated migrants, environmentally displaced persons, environmental displacees, environmental refugees, environmental-refugee-to be climate (change) migrants, climate (change) refugees, climate-change-induced migrants, disaster refugees, eco-refugees, ecologically displaced persons and even the very long name used by the Nansen Initiative that is ‘cross-border displaced persons in the context of disasters and climate change’.[26] No matter which term is used, people displaced by climate change on most occasions do not meet the threshold that is required for international protection, as international refugee law requires a well-founded fear of being persecuted while international human rights law requires a real risk of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or an arbitrary deprivation of their life upon expulsion.[27] In 2019 the UN Human Rights Committee decided that human rights law requires states to not send people back where climate change impacts expose them to life-threatening risks or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, but it still needs to clarify the temporal scope of this protection.[28] The Global Migration Compact describes how signatory countries should deal with those whose displacement is linked to climate change, referring to them as climate migrants,[29] although the term is not defined. In the process of the development of international law on climate migration, the Global Migration Compact consolidates the legal classification of climate migrants as such, following its predecessor documents.

2. Legal Development to the Global Migration Compact

As its predecessors, a number of legal documents provided for the legal development that resulted in the Global Migration Compact. Likewise, these documents describe expressly non-binding standards and goals, use some of the same terms and reasoning, and stand against the background of the originally addressed question of how to regulate migration, particularly in masses.[30] Like the Global Migration Compact, moreover, many of these documents underlined the sovereignty of nation-states, and many called for the creation of new legal norms, but considered this to be possible only in the future.[31] While specifically the predecessor documents of the Global Migration Compact see climate change as a matter of migration rather than refugee law and policy, a common element of all international instruments increasingly introduced in the past decade to address climate change-related displacement is the grounding in principles of human rights.[32]

The Global Migration Compact traces back directly to the September 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants,[33] which also classified climate migrants as such rather than as refugees and made the respective choice of language. It was the outcome of the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants,[34] held as the UN General Assembly’s response to the large movements of refugees and migrants around the world.[35] The New York Declaration distinguished between refugees and migrants, whose treatment would be governed by separate legal frameworks, but who would have the same human rights and fundamental freedoms as all people.[36] It contained principled commitments applicable to both refugees and migrants and those applicable only to migrants or only to refugees, all likewise legally non-binding.[37] Having furthermore reaffirmed the importance of already existing legal instruments to protect refugees and migrants, all UN member states agreed to develop the two new compacts, each respectively for refugees or migrants, so now the Global Migration Compact itself in the very first sentence, in turn, refers to the New York Declaration.[38]

Further predecessor documents are those stemming from the Nansen Initiative on Disaster-Induced Cross-Border Displacement (Nansen Initiative). By addressing climate migrants directly, as not falling under refugee law, the New York Declaration was in line with and referred[39] to the Nansen Initiative, which was established in 2012 to protect climate migrants in light of gaps in existing international law.[40] As a state-led, bottom-up consultative process, seeking ‘to build consensus on a protection agenda addressing the needs of people displaced across borders by natural disasters in the context of disasters and the effects of climate change’, it dated back to an unsuccessful effort of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2011 to encourage states to work towards a ‘global guiding framework’ on displacement because of climate change.[41] For the Nansen Initiative, an agenda was elaborated and in 2015 under the auspices of the UN, 109 states endorsed the Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change.[42] That document outlines normative gaps and provides a toolbox of concrete policy options and recommendations at the national, regional and international levels.[43] Having been described as a ‘pre-soft law initiative, which seeks to build political consensus and open the way to greater legal achievements’,[44] it is a non-binding, non-standard-setting document.[45] For the implementation of its recommendations and as a successor to the Nansen Initiative, which concluded at the end of 2015, the Platform on Disaster Displacement was created in 2016.[46] Likewise not intending to create new legal norms, but to continue consolidating and enhancing the use of elaborated practices and promoting policy coherence,[47] the success of the Nansen Initiative’s legacy continuously depends on the implementation of the recommendations in practice.[48]

As parallel developments in the foregoing legal development leading to the Global Migration Compact, in 2015, the UN adopted the Sustainable Development Goals as the centerpiece of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,[49] and before that, in 2013, it adopted the Declaration of the High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development.[50] Like the Global Migration Compact, these two legal documents address migration issues and are not legally binding.[51] The Global Migration Compact adopted in its title the formulation of a Sustainable Development Goal[52] of ‘orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration’ almost word for word, while the Declaration of the High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development also made the link[53] between migration and human rights.[54] The Global Migration Compact was designed to be consistent with and complementary to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and explicitly refers to the Sustainable Development Goals that apply to all UN states.[55] The 2013 Declaration of the High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development was the result of only the second time that the UN has dedicated a major meeting solely to international migration, as until the first High-Level Dialogue in 2006 migration had always been a contentious subject in UN context, setting the global north against the global south and receiving countries versus origin countries.[56]

As a final predecessor document to be mentioned, the Global Migration Compact moreover effectively traces back and also explicitly refers[57] to the report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Migration Peter Sutherland from 2017.[58] The so-called Sutherland Report as such was also not legally binding but, as the Global Migration Compact, aimed to improve the management of international migration with an agenda of commitments and notably was also characterized as a ‘roadmap’ in the field of international migration on UN level.[59] On the basis that states themselves can determine who comes to them,[60] and that it is still up to the states themselves to create binding norms,[61] the Sutherland Report was particularly dedicated to migrants not covered by the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees,[62] and thus also climate migrants.[63]

3. Legal Development since the Global Migration Compact

While the Geneva Convention represents the international consensus reference for the international refugee legal system, the Global Migration Compact now provides a substantive reference for the international migration regime to guide the further development of both national and international laws on migration.[64] At the same time, because it explicitly addresses the phenomenon, the Global Migration Compact also presents the groundwork for the future development of climate migration regulation. Russia expects it ‘to become a foundation for long-term comprehensive international cooperation aiming to, inter alia, create channels for legal migration and mechanisms for effective control over migration processes, elaborate instruments against illegal migration, including readmission, as well as fight against migration-related crimes’.[65] Because it is still up to the national states themselves to engage in the creation of binding norms, it is the states’ approach that is decisive: ‘Specific mechanisms to implement the Global Migration Compact are to be elaborated both within the framework of international cooperation and at the national level taking into account the national interests of its parties (…) and their priorities of promoting the interests of their citizens’.[66] During the intergovernmental negotiations, the Russian delegation advocated for the fixed principle of voluntary implementation of the Global Migration Compact as well as for the non-binding character of the document.[67] At signing, Russia described the Global Migration Compact as ‘certainly not a legally binding instrument. (…) At the same time, it sets out a specific direction for the development of current views of and approaches towards international migration and shapes a universal approach to this issue’.[68]

There are no universal prospects for compliance with the Global Migration Compact in international practice today since a number of countries, against the background of large-scale refugee movements and the resulting domestic and international political controversies in previous years,[69] did not participate. The United States of America withdrew from discussions of the Global Migration Compact back at the end of 2017, while Australia, the Netherlands, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Latvia, Slovakia, Estonia and Italy have either refused to participate in the conference or have ruled out signing the agreement.[70] Still, all in all, the Global Migration Compact sets a certain vector in the development of modern views and approaches to the problem of international migration, draws the outlines of a universal approach to it, while specific mechanisms for the implementation of the Global Migration Compact provisions are to be developed within the framework of international cooperation and at the domestic level, taking into account the national interests of its signatories.[71] In the course of this continuous legal development on international and national levels, the importance of climate change and its severe implications, particularly on migrations, will only increase over time.

4. Russian Position formulated about Global Migration Compact applied to Climate Migration

When signing the Global Migration Compact, the Russian Federation’s delegation made a statement about it, stipulating its adoption by the country as well for inclusion in the UN official documents, while not only commenting on various points and expressing the country’s expectations but also repudiating certain elements of the document.[72] In particular, the concept of shared responsibility and the recommendations following the Nansen Initiative are rejected, and although particularly in the first case the elaborating legal and factual reasoning was partly done with the use of examples in other contexts, effectively the regulations in the Global Migration Compact addressing climate migration through broad interpretation also should be seen as being subject when it comes to their application in the future.

The Russian statement on the Global Migration Compact reiterates the ‘repudiation of the ‘shared responsibility’ concept that, in its current form, merely implies sharing the burden of hosting forced migrants between the States that frequently have nothing to do with the causes of the mass exodus of people’.[73] In the context of climate migration, the Russian Federation could refer to being responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and, as a result, for global warming only to a limited extent both historically and today. However, while the liability of states mostly responsible for climate change would be appropriate in specific cases where damage has been caused, it would be unjust to apportion the whole responsibility to these states, especially in the context of migration, the hosting of a huge number of migrants and their settlement, so it is more likely that these states will consent to assist in liquidating the consequences of natural and anthropogenic disasters.[74]

Furthermore, the statement finds it ‘inappropriate to refer to the activities and recommendations of the Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change and the Platform on Disaster Displacement’.[75] Although these documents present non-binding recommendations themselves, they were nevertheless internationally elaborated for addressing of cross-border climate migration by consensus, and therefore play a role in further legal development. Russia did not participate in the Nansen Initiative from 2012, did not endorse the Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change in 2015, and is not a part of the Platform on Disaster Displacement since its start in 2016 in the first place. Regarding climate migration to Russia, this excludes the use of the frameworks following the Nansen Initiative, as referred to in the Global Migration Compact,[76] instead insofar providing for own policy discretion of the Russian state.

III. Development of Russian Regulations and State Policies on Migration

1. Introducing the Central Legal Document in National Migration Law

The Russian statement on the Global Migration Compact refers to the State Migration Concept from October 2018 as containing a number of provisions implementing the principles and objectives of the Global Migration Compact,[77] while the State Migration Concept in turn states that assistance to foreign nationals seeking protection in Russia will be provided in accordance with public international law.[78] The State Migration Concept, which defines the goals, principles, tasks, main directions and mechanisms of the migration policy of the Russian Federation, is the central national legal instrument in the sphere of migration.[79] As of today, Russian legislation in the field of migration lacks a single comprehensive legal act.[80] Instead, Russian migration legislation includes more than a dozen federal laws, more than a hundred presidential decrees, governmental resolutions and orders, legal acts of various ministries and departments, as well as several dozens of interstate and intergovernmental agreements.[81] Factually, migration in the Russian Federation is regulated by a complex set of constitutional, administrative, financial, labor, civil, and some other areas of Russian law.[82] In this multiplicity of national migration legislation, the State Migration Concept provides a strategic planning document adopted at the federal level and in broad terms defining the directions, contents, and principles of Russian migration policy.

2. Legal Development to the State Migration Concept

Today the foundations of Russian migration policy are determined by the President of the Russian Federation, and the work on its legislative support is carried out by the Chambers of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.[83] Russian migration legislation is based on a large set of legal acts, the foundation of which is the Constitution, and which includes laws such as the registration of foreign citizens and stateless persons, the legal status of foreign citizens, citizenship, and the procedure for leaving and entering, etc.[84] The existing legal acts do not define ‘immigrants’ and other significant legal categories in this area, which affects the systematic development of Russian legislation in the field of migration.[85] Although the central source of regulation of migration processes is the Constitution, migration legislation of the Russian Federation began to develop before its adoption in 1993.[86] Active development of migration legislation in the Russian Federation fell in the 1990s and was largely due to the collapse of the USSR.[87] In the early 1990s, when migration problems for Russia became large-scale due to the huge flow of migrants arriving from the former Soviet republics, there was a need to form migration legislation as quickly as possible, which had an impact on its quality.[88] For years, the situational and hasty nature of the decisions made did not allow for the proper regulation of the structure, composition, and direction of migrations into the Russian Federation in accordance with the main socio-economic and political objectives of the country.[89]

Against this background, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of documents that define the goals and objectives of the regulation of migration in the broader picture, i.e. strategies and concepts of migration policy.[90] The foundation of Russian modern migration strategy was laid by the presidential Decree No. 1668 of August 9, 1994, approving the at that time new federal migration program of the Russian Federation and for the first time attempting to officially formulate at the state level a set of socio-political concepts and views on migration.[91] The abundance of such documents adopted since then demonstrates the constantly changing conditions of migration and the need to create effective legal instruments for regulating migration flows in the interests of the country.[92] As social attitudes to migration have evolved, political views on this phenomenon changed.[93] With the adoption in 2012 of the Concept of State Migration Policy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025,[94] a strategic planning document in the sphere of migration was achieved.[95] That concept from 2012 determined the content and aims of the regulation of migration policy in the country by choosing the priority vectors for the development of internal and external migration but did so using vague language on partly unclear grounds.[96] It provided for three stages of implementation, with the first stage from 2012 to 2015, a second stage from 2016 to 2020, and the third stage from 2021 to 2025.[97] In the five years since the signing of the 2012 concept, migration policy has been changed by a number of legal instruments of migration legislation.[98] Yet already in 2018, that concept from 2012 was replaced by the new Concept of State Migration Policy of the Russian Federation for 2019-2025[99] (referred to here as the State Migration Concept), while the provisions of the earlier Concept were declared invalid.[100]

3. Legal Development from the State Migration Concept

As a result of the introduction of the current State Migration Concept, not only was the main document, which established a system of views on the principles, content, and course of migration policy, replaced, but a number of federal laws regulating migration issues also were changed.[101] The State Migration Concept is a further stage in the development of migration policy, characterized by more pragmatism which is expressed in the dominance of national interests, and aims at solving the same set of tasks in new historical conditions.[102] The reason for adjusting the previously adopted concept was related to the developments in the international political and economic environment, which brought radical changes in the world between 2012 and 2018.[103] The underlying rationale is that the changing international situation requires constant monitoring and analysis of migrations, their trends, and dynamics, as well as the development of a flexible migration state policy on this basis, which implies the possibility of its prompt revision and adjustment, if necessary.[104]

However, the State Migration Concept still does not provide important definitions and a comprehensive approach to migration regulation, as a result of which there have been sporadic changes and additions to the existing legal acts, depending on the urgency of circumstances.[105] The mechanisms for its implementation envisaged in the State Migration Concept are general and vague, and there is no scenario planning of the prospects of the impact of various factors on changes in migration flows, or clear planning and forecasting of the necessary migration resources.[106] In the absence of a clear direction for modernizing legislation for the implementation of state migration policy at the level of this strategic planning document, the current development of the regulatory framework in this area is at times disordered and influenced by situational reasons.[107] Despite two migration policy concepts adopted over the past 10 years, one in 2012 and one in 2018, there is no comprehensive policy consensus on migration strategy today in Russia.[108] There have been no straightforward long-term political aims in Russian migration policy for a number of years,[109] while decisions in migration regulation were intermittently taken situationally without substantive conceptual support.[110]

Migration policy in the Russian Federation today, firstly, is formed largely situationally, as a reaction to certain events and circumstances, such as an economic crisis, a pandemic, negotiations with certain countries, etc., when in some cases there is a sudden demand to attract migrants, in others, to expel them. Secondly, Russian migration policy is the result of the actions of various lobbyists, including entrepreneurs, human rights activists, governments of other countries, etc., some of whom want migration movements to Russia and others do not. Since events and situations to respond to change rapidly, as does the influence of certain lobbyists, Russian migration state policy in practice is inconsistent and multidirectional.[111]

4. Russian Position created with State Migration Policy applied to Climate Migration

The mentioned inconsistency in state policy on migration is not unique to Russia but can be seen in the form of the same kind of political turmoil in other countries all around the world – at a time when global uncertainty is growing and when there is a growing political struggle between different momentary interests and attitudes, different lobbies and ideologies about and around the topic of migration.[112] Because of its anticipated scope, particularly climate migration as a most crucial matter of the current times can be expected to be met with much controversy as to which national migration policy to adopt all around the world. There are still no exact and detailed statistics about the number of people falling within that category as the data on environmental migration collected so far by the UN cannot be considered sufficient.[113] Even more importantly, estimates by various researchers of forecasted climate migration vary widely, ranging from 50 million to 1 billion people by 2050.[114] While generally, the multi-faceted nature of mobility makes it an almost impossible phenomenon to forecast with any precision, specific displacements due to climate change are as unpredictable because the effects of climate change are not linear and will rarely be the single influencing factor.[115] One certainty is that all wealthier states in the global north will eventually face the same enduring choice that it determining whether it is a society of walls or one that builds wells.[116]

Russian migration legislation, as is the case in most countries of the world, today is still missing the concept of transborder climate migrants.[117] Necessary preparation for incoming climate migration, as far as possible, demands imagining where people are likely to go, and when.[118] Yet the State Migration Concept, representing Russian migration policy today, has no scenario planning of prospects of various factors leading to changes in migrations,[119]  not allowing well-founded preparation for climate change-induced transborder migrations. The lack of clear planning and forecasting of the necessary migration resources in Russia, taking into account the needs of the labor market and the opportunities for settlement and adaptation of migrants, also complicates the resolution of this issue.[120] Although the country is not substantively prepared for incoming transborder climate migration in advance, at the same time, the changeable nature of Russian migration legislation enshrined in the State Migration Concept allows for continuous renewal.[121] As a result, Russia can revise its regulatory framework on migration along the actual dynamics of climate migration in the future and as the international situation changes along in its context.

IV. Conclusion

Common features of the Global Migration Compact and the State Migration Concept are the lack of key definitions, the ambitiously yet broadly described goals, the non-binding legal nature or required implementation through separate instruments, and the ambition to have fundamental character and serve as a comprehensive foundation for future legal development, as well as the uniqueness in the latter role on the respective national and international levels. At the same time, the two documents radically differ in that the Global Migration Compact is the result of long intergovernmental negotiations and will likely remain in its position in international law for a long time, while the State Migration Concept replaced its predecessor document in the middle of its validity period and could be amended itself at any time.

The renewability of the State Migration Concept allows for changeability of Russian migration policy and legal framework which can also be seen from the foregoing and current developments that lack long-term conceptual consistency. While it does not create legal certainty on the matter today, as Russian legislation has not addressed transborder climate migration to date (which it eventually will in the future), and furthermore does not allow essential preparation for incoming transborder climate migration in advance (which it necessarily should as of today) for lack of substantive scenario and resources planning in the State Migration Concept, its migration state policy allows the Russian Federation adaptable changes in migration legislation when addressing it on the national level.

On the international level, neither its, likewise goal-setting yet legally non-binding, predecessor documents nor the Global Migration Compact as the ‘roadmap’ for the future do see climate change induced displacement of people as a matter of international refugee law and, while they do generally refer to international human rights, they do not go beyond that generality when it comes to climate migration specifically. The Global Migration Compact, while addressing climate migration explicitly, does not create new obligations apart from already existing and only quoted general obligations under international law, which do not cover climate migration directly. As a result, and given that the Global Migration Compact puts its implementation into the hands of the states, national lawmakers all around the world have broad discretion when approaching the ‘direction for the development of current views of and approaches towards international migration’ it has pointed to.

In the case of climate migration to the Russian Federation, this already wide policy discretion is further reinforced by the Russian ruling out of the application of the recommendations following the Nansen Initiative in the further continuous development of international law on climate migration. Moreover, as a different point to be made, while being able to underline having comparatively limited rather than ‘shared responsibility’ for climate change, Russia could refer to financial and logistical assistance of international organizations such as the UN as well as wealthy nation-states most or more responsible for it when confronted with the challenges in hosting and housing of incoming transborder climate migrations.

Although presenting risks that need to be addressed,[122] first and foremost with preparation, migrations can bring opportunity not just to migrants but also to the places they go, whereas Russia like other parts of the global north, faces a demographic decline.[123] Out of tradition, Russian society freely and equally includes and accepts other ethnic groups in their entirety, allowing peaceful coexistence and interaction of different religions, while a unified state ensures peace, prosperity, and development over a vast territory.[124] Open to climate migrants, Russia could relieve pressures on the warmer countries, at a time when anti-immigrant backlashes around the world lead states to seal themselves off, eventually trapping hundreds of millions of people in places that are increasingly unlivable.[125]

  1. The author is an LL.M. Candidate at the Peking University School of Transnational Law and can be reached at nikita.gonta@protonmail.com.   
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  33. Para. 50 New York Declaration.
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  53. Para. 1 New York Declaration.
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  61. Para. 87 Sutherland Report.
  62. Paras. 19 – 21 Sutherland Report.
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  89. Elvira Mamontova, Urgent amendments to the migration legislation of the Russian Federation, Istoriya i Sovremennostʹ 8 (3/2019), at p. 101 (Rus.).
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  93. Igor Ozerov et al., The modernization of the migration policy of the Russian Federation, Vestnik of St. Petersburg University of the Ministry of internal Affairs of Russia, 81 (1/2019), at p. 71 (Rus.).
  94. Presidential Decree No. 1490 of 13.06.2012 (Rus.).
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  115. Miriam Cullen, Disaster, Displacement and International Law: Legal Protections in the Context of a Changing Climate, Politics and Governance 8 (4/2020), at p. 270.
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