Migration acts as a powerful catalyst for pluralism, as it introduces new identity-related, legal, and cultural demands into the social fabric, forcing legal systems to redefine the boundaries of belonging. In particular, human mobility – both cross-border and internal – originating from environmental degradation and climate change, represents a systemic emergency of the 21st century, highlighting the anachronism of established legal frameworks and the inadequacy of 20th-century international protection regimes. A previous focus of this observatory had already provided some useful coordinates for understanding the emerging recognition of climate change in Italy as a legally relevant cause for forced migration deserving of protection (The protection of climate migrants in Italy).  In light of the most recent legislative interventions, however, it is considered useful to update the domestic framework and provide some further points for reflection.

 

2023 marked a fundamental breaking point, signaling a return to the restrictive configuration previously experienced in 2018. The Italian regulatory framework regarding the protection of climate migrants has recently undergone a regressive shift, culminating in Decree-Law No. 20 of March 10, 2023, enacted into law with amendments by Law No. 50 of May 5, 2023 (the so-called “Cutro Decree”). The latter has drastically curtailed the scope of the “special protection” (protezione speciale), due to the preclusion of converting the permit into a residence permit for work reasons. This depletion of complementary protection – historically functional in safeguarding individuals from contexts of ecosystemic crisis, with particular reference to the Bangladeshi migratory group – creates a protection gap that the remaining cases categorized by Legislative Decree 286 of 1998 (the “Consolidated Law on Immigration” or TUI) do not appear suitable to remedy according to criteria of effectiveness. Currently, for example, the recognition of a residence permit for “calamity” governed by art. 20-bis TUI is tied to a strictly objective and temporary scenario: the country to which the foreigner should return must be in a situation of “contingent and exceptional” calamity. This wording restricts the scope of application solely to violent and immediate disastrous events that preclude return under safe conditions, effectively excluding slow-onset or chronic environmental degradation processes. Furthermore, from a legal regime perspective, the rule strips the instrument of long-term effectiveness through the ban on conversion for work reasons and the limitation of renewal to a single six-month extension, establishing the exclusively transitory and non-stabilizable nature of the residence permit, even in the face of an environmental crisis that could take on irreversible characteristics.

 

On the other hand, the very absence of legislation that includes a plural formulation of the “climate migrant” (which, according to much of the literature, represents a species of the genus “environmental migrant”) – such as an individual forced to leave their State also due to slow-onset climate factors like drought and desertification – is common to many European Union Member States. This regulatory gap, which also persists within the framework of the new European Pact on Migration and Asylum, has led to the development of innovative jurisprudence, particularly in Italy, France, and Germany. According to Anna Brambilla, the most recent Italian jurisprudence seems oriented toward a reinterpretation of the Geneva Convention that emphasizes the link between climate degradation and social vulnerability. This shift is based on a broad interpretation of the right to life and the strengthening of “'positive protection obligations incumbent upon States”. This hermeneutic approach seems to be shared by many national courts (on the transformation in the understanding of state duties in the face of climate change, see The Protection of Human Rights in the Face of the Climate Emergency). In several relevant case law examples, national judges attribute legal significance to degraded environmental contexts – linking them in various ways, for instance, to the right to health or the principle of human dignity – to fill the silence of the legislature. In other words, a pluralistic vision of climate migration is necessary, both in relation to the factors that cause it and in relation to the individuals who are its victims. Many limitations, however, derive from the jurisprudential nature of this recognition, first and foremost its inter partes efficacy, which does not yet allow for the development of a systemic solution.

 

(Focus by Laura Restuccia)

 

Selected bibliography:

 

F. Amato, V. Carofalo, A. Del Guercio, A. Fazzini, V. Grado, E. Imparato, A. Liguori (eds.), Climate change, human rights and international migration, Napoli, Editoriale Scientifica, 2025

 

S. Borràs-Pentinat, A. Cossiri, La protezione giuridica dei migranti forzati per causa climatica all’incrocio degli ordinamenti giuridici, in Diritto, Immigrazione e Cittadinanza, n. 3/2024, pp. 1 ss.

 

M. Bruzzese, La tutela internazionale ed europea dei migranti climatici: le lacune giuridiche e i tentativi di colmarle, in Blog di AISDUE, n. 2/2022, pp. 1 ss.

 

G. Daoust, J. Selby Climate change and migration: A review and new framework for analysis, in WIREs Climate Change, n. 15(4)/2024 

 

M.B. Khaskheli, A.A. Bishaw, J.G. Mapa, C.A. Gomes Dos Santos, TOW environmental migrants in the international refuge law and human rights: an assessment of protection gaps and migrants’ legal protection, in ScienceRise: Juridical Science, n. 3(13)/2020, pp. 52 ss. 

 

K. Neri, Human rights and climate migrants. A comparison of the potential for legal protection in Europe and the Americas, n. 111/2025, pp. 7 ss.

 

F. Perrini, Il Nuovo Patto sulla migrazione e l’asilo ed i migranti ambientali: una categoria “dimenticata”?, in Freedom, Security & Justice, n. 2/2021, pp. 245 ss.

 

R. Picone, Migrazioni ambientali e ordinamento nazionale. Quali strumenti di tutela?, in Actualidad Jurídica Iberoamericana, n. 20/2024, pp. 1246 ss.

 

C.M. Pontecorvo, Towards litigating climate-induced migration? Current limits and emerging trends for the protection of “climate-induced migrants” in international law, in Ordine internazionale e diritti umani, n. 1/2022, pp. 99 ss.

 

A. Stevanato, I migranti ambientali nel decreto-legge n. 20 del 2023. Che cosa resta della loro protezione?, in Corti supreme e salute, n. 2/2023, pp. 455 ss.

 

A. Stevanato, Il paradosso della contemporaneità. La protezione giuridica del migrante ambientale nei più recenti sviluppi normativi, in ADim BLOG, aprile 2024

 

M.C. Waters, Preparing for climate migration and integration: a policy and research agenda, in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, n. 51(1)/2025, pp. 4 ss.

 

Related case law:

 

Tribunale di Firenze, decree of May 3, 2023

 

Administrative Court of Appeal of Bordeaux, 2nd Chamber, nos. 20BX02193 and 20BX02195 of December 18, 2020

 

Higher Administrative Court of Baden-Württemberg, no. A11S2042/20 of December 17, 2020