First Book in the refreshed NNHRR Human Rights Research Series Published: The Human Cost of Development – Situating Development-Induced Displacement in International Human Rights Law by Roman Teshome

The first book in the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR) Human Rights Research Series published by TMC Asser Press and Springer is now available for purchase. The volume, The Human Cost of Development – Situating Development-Induced Displacement in International Human Rights Law, is authored by Roman Girma Teshome, Assistant Professor at the School of Law of Utrecht University. Released in March 2026, the book is published as Volume 104 of the Human Rights Research Series.

A human rights-based approach to development-induced displacement

The book examines development-induced displacement (DID), a form of internal displacement in which individuals or communities are involuntarily relocated to make way for development projects such as infrastructure, dams, or urban expansion. Although DID is often justified in the name of economic development, such projects can have profound social and economic consequences for affected populations.

Against this backdrop and adopting a human rights-based approach, the study reframes these consequences as human rights concerns and explores how international human rights law can respond to them. Although there is currently no comprehensive binding international legal framework specifically addressing DID, the book demonstrates that individuals and communities can rely on protections found across existing human rights regimes.

In particular, the work maps and analyses the international and regional human rights norms applicable to development-related displacement. It examines frameworks relating to the rights of internally displaced persons, Indigenous peoples, and the right to development, as well as policy standards adopted by international financial institutions that fund development projects. In this sense, the book offers a comprehensive overview of the normative landscape governing DID and critically assesses their gaps and limitations, asking whether current international human rights norms adequately address the distinctive features and long-term impacts of development-induced displacement.

The Human Cost of Development provides a comprehensive legal analysis that will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners working in the fields of human rights, development, and displacement, as well as those seeking to ensure that development initiatives are implemented in accordance with human rights standards.

Continuing the NNHRR Human Rights Research Series

The Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research and its predecessor, the Netherlands School of Human Rights Research, have a long-standing tradition of supporting the publication of high-quality human rights research monographs derived from the PhD theses of their members. Many of the authors who have published their thesis in the series have gone on to become professors of human rights in the Netherlands and abroad. The first volume in the Human Rights Research Series, The Right to Health as a Human Right in International law by Brigit Toebes, now Professor of Health Law in a Global Context at the University of Groningen, was published in 1999. Among the many notable authors in the series are Professors Yvonne Donders, Nicola Jagers, Antoine Buyse, Jasper Krommendijk and Andrea Broderick, who now serve as Steering Committee members of the Network. In 2025, TMC Asser Press assumed stewardship of the Series from Intersentia, ensuring continued access to this important collection of human rights research.

Are you a PhD member of the Network looking for a publisher for your thesis? Look no further than the NNHRR Human Rights Series. Publishing in this series places your work alongside leading human rights scholars in the Netherlands and within a distinguished body of scholarship in the field. You can find all of the relevant information here, and don’t hesitate to reach out to nnhrr@asser.nl with any questions.