Prof. Walter Kälin

Bio

Walter Kälin is professor emeritus for international and (Swiss) constitutional law, University of Bern/Switzerland. He is the present Envoy of the Chair of the Platform on Disaster Displacement (since July 2017) and the former Envoy of the Nansen Initiative on disaster-induced cross-border displacement (2012 – 1015). Prof. Kälin also served as Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons (2004 – 2010) and as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee (2003 – 2008 / 2012 – 2014).In the 1990s, he chaired the expert group drafting the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and later led the process resulting in the 2010 IASC Framework on Durable Solutions. His present focus is on issues related to finding durable solutions for IDPs as well as displacement in the context of disasters and adverse effects of climate change.

Recent publications

• W. Kälin, Innovative Global Governance for Internally Displaced Persons, World Refugee Council Research Paper No. 10, April 2019
• W. Kälin and Hannah Entwisle Chapuisat, Guiding Principle 28: The unfulfilled promise to end protracted internal displacement, International Journal of Refugee Law, Vol 30(2), 2018, pp. 243–268 (https://academic.oup.com/ijrl/article/30/2/243/5086703 )
• W. Kälin and Hannah Entwisle Chapuisat, Breaking the Impasse: Reducing Protracted Internal Displacement as a Collective Outcome, OCHA, New York 2017 (https://www.unocha.org/about-us/publications;
• W. Kälin and Hannah Entwisle Chapuisat, Displacement in the context of disasters and adverse effects of climate change, in: Susan Breau and Katja Samuel (eds), Research Handbook on Disasters and International Law, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2016, pp. 358 - 382
• Jane McAdam, Bruce Burson, Walter Kälin und Sanjula Weerasinghe, International Law and Sea-Level Rise: Forced Migration and Human Rights, FNI Report 1/2016, Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo 2016