Asylum and Internal Displacement: The Intertwining of Migrations in Colombia

This paper analyses what different forms of forced migration have in common, beyond the distinctions made in law through a study of how the internal displacement of Colombians due to the armed conflict overlaps and intertwines with the displacement of Venezuelans arriving in Colombia on the other

Published on March 21, 2022

Carolina Moreno V. | lanid, IDPs, Refugees, Conflict, Violence, Protection, Americas (inc Caribbean)

Photo credit: Colombia. Venezuelans prepare their luggage to continue their journey through the mountains. 2019 © UNHCR/Hélène Caux

This paper explores asylum and internal displacement as ways of migration or human mobility. It focus particularly on the consequences resulting from each of the legal frameworks governing each expression of mobility in order to narrow down the scope in which they apply, as well as the gaps in protection resulting in each case. This work is additionally structured around the preexisting literature that has studied the relation between internal displacement and asylum. This paper thus explores how the Colombian State responds to the internal and external migrant population; and from that point on, it analyzes how compartmentalizing law explains the different degrees of protection, according to the type of mobility or migration. It is thus that the law defines categories, sets boundaries, legitimizes certain actors and disregards others, creating protection regimes and gaps in protection.

Carolina Moreno V. is Associate Professor of the School of Law, Los Andes University (Bogotá, Colombia), Director of the Center for Migration Studies (CEM) and co-founder of the Legal Clinic for Migrants, Universidad de los Andes, and a Member of the Latin American Network on Internal Displacement (LANID).

LANID Special Issue: “Critical Approaches to Internal Displacement”

The Latin America Network on Internal Displacement (LANID) brings together academics, activists, artists, and practitioners with the aim of reflecting critically on internal displacement. This LANID Special Issue aims to extend knowledge and promote debate on this phenomenon. Although each Paper has been written from a different perspective, they all share the key feature that they delve into the multidimensional nature, diverse causes and complex dynamics of this kind of forced migration, as well as into the search for new ways to achieve durable solutions that allow those affected by internal displacement to overcome their vulnerability.

This paper was written by the author in the framework of the “Interdisciplinary Network on Internal Displacement, Conflict and Protection” project (AH/T005351/1), supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, on behalf of the UKRI Global Challenge Research Fund.

Download RID Working Paper No. 19

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Rethinking Planned Relocation as Social Protection In an Era of Increasing Climate Change Risks

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As climate impacts intensify, planned relocation is increasingly deployed as an adaptation strategy, yet outcomes for relocated communities remain consistently adverse. This paper argues that these failures stem from the treatment of planned relocation as a short-term, projectised disaster response rather than as a long-term developmental intervention. Drawing on social protection theory, this paper reconceptualises planned relocation as a form of social assistance, capable of delivering durable solutions. It demonstrates that planned relocation inherently performs preventive, protective, promotive, and potentially transformative social protection functions by minimising future climate risks, providing non-contributory transfers such as land and housing, and enabling livelihood reconstruction. However, when implemented outside formal social protection systems, these functions may collapse, often resulting in impoverishment and protracted displacement.

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Researching Internal Displacement is pleased to make this case study available as a stand-alone publication. Excerpted from a recent research and advocacy report by the Refugee Law Initiative, this case study of an urban informal settlement in Tongi, Bangladesh, examines the lived experience of loss and damage among people displaced in the context of climate change and left behind in climate action. Encouragingly, the case study also highlights a promising 'good practice' development intervention by the SAJIDA Foundation. In the case study, programme participants describe how Sajida’s multifaceted approach, which empowers women and girls, encourages positive behaviour change and prioritises psychosocial wellbeing across multiple programme workstreams, has helped restore agency, self-sufficiency and hope. SAJIDA’s programme shows how protracted displacement and associated losses and damages can be addressed and are not inevitable.

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By Steven Miron, Dyuti Tasnuva Rifat, Tanjib Islam | Oct 21, 2025

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