The Impasse of International Law on Climate-Induced Migration: Recent Developments and the United Nation’s January 2020 Decision on Climate Refugees

This paper aims to lay out the challenges and potentially fatal conflicts inherent in the emerging attempts to respect state sovereignty while crafting progressive and truly responsive sets of approaches to a sui generis global problem like the climate crisis. It examines general approaches and practices on climate refugees within the scope of a critical legal framework, taking as an example the ‘Ioane Teitiota’ case that attracted public attention as an international issue starting in 2013. In addition, we will examine from a legal viewpoint and with an eye to future consequences, the January 2020 United Nations’ historical decision on climate refugees. We adopt Martti Koskennimi’s terms, ascending and descending justifications, to show the oscillation that the legal mind experiences in between order and will. In this paper, we will claim that the legal mind fights a battle that eventually ends up with a deadlock due to the very structure of modern law.

(Un)Just transitions and Black dispossession: The disposability of Caribbean ‘refugees’ and the political economy of climate justice

Caribbean populations face increased displacement, dispossession and debt burdens due to shocks related to climate change. As the major neighbouring power that is the most significant historical contributor to global warming, the United States has persistently deflected from this responsibility. Instead, its climate plans are weaponized to target potential climate refugees who constitute a ‘national security threat’ and are faced with risks of premature death. These policies also aim to create green capitalist peripheries following racial capitalist logics. The paper contends that US climate interventions and policies increase the likelihood of Black dispossession within Caribbean societies. These policies commit to supporting so-called ‘left-behind’ white communities in need of a ‘just transition’, while Caribbean racialized subjects are not as equally deserving. To explain this, the paper examines major climate policies, in particular the recent Congressional Climate Action Plan of the US House of Representatives and President Biden’s climate proposals. It juxtaposes policy claims against political actions and racial capitalist historiography of the United States, especially its past treatment of climate refugees from the Caribbean. This analysis shows the persistent ways in which US climate policies advance organized abandonment and a neocolonial relationship predicated on an unjust system of racial capitalism.

Mutual relationships of environment and migration: A sociological appraisal

Socio-industrial change in the past two centuries has widely affected the environment in various ways. In this process natural life has reversed ___ water resources, forests, agriculture, original foods, rural life, husbandry, access to fresh air and many more have changed face. Instead, chemicals, pollutants, transportation pollution, family networks, artificial food and many more have replaced the original/ natural characteristics of life and the original human values. Environmental change and degradation have widely caused migration in various forms. Currently, we can observe lots of climate refugees moving from one part to another. Such a situation leads to problems in the area of origin and in the destination area. When migration from a village takes place, agricultural production per head migrant is ceased/ suspended, and when the migrant is settled in a city, or another country, there would happen a pressure on resources there. Therefore, migration overall has its positive and negative effects. However, the phenomenon of migration brings many challenges and shortcomings for the host countries. Illegal immigrants who generally live unregistered on the outskirts of the city, they themselves cause environmental pollution, many social perversions, abnormalities (antisocial) behaviors, and the like.

Mutual Relationships of Environment and Migration: A Sociological Appraisal

Socio-industrial change in the past two centuries has widely affected the environment in various ways. In this process natural life has reversed ___ water resources, forests, agriculture, original foods, rural life, husbandry, access to fresh air and many more have changed face. Instead, chemicals, pollutants, transportation pollution, family networks, artificial food and many more have replaced the original/ natural characteristics of life and the original human values. Environmental change and degradation have widely caused migration in various forms. Currently, we can observe lots of climate refugees moving from one part to another. Such a situation leads to problems in the area of origin and in the destination area. When migration from a village takes place, agricultural production per head migrant is ceased/ suspended, and when the migrant is settled in a city, or another country, there would happen a pressure on resources there. Therefore, migration overall has its positive and negative effects. However, the phenomenon of migration brings many challenges and shortcomings for the host countries. Illegal immigrants who generally live unregistered on the outskirts of the city, they themselves cause environmental pollution, many social perversions, abnormalities (antisocial) behaviors, and the like.

Beyond burdens and climate refugees: a stocktake of international responsibility-sharing and South Pacific climate-induced migration

<p>This paper provides a ‘stocktake’ of common responsibility-sharing principles and goals in international agreements on climate change and refugees/migration to date and investigates how these principles might inform an Oceania agreement to deal with the emerging issue of South Pacific climate-induced migration. Where international agreements on climate change and refugees/migration overlap I identify a set of responsibility-sharing principles and goals and investigate their compatibility with the needs and demands of Pacific communities facing the prospect of climate-induced displacement. In this paper, I tap into ongoing political and academic debates concerning if and how we ought to differentiate states’ environmental responsibilities. I ask whose responsibility is it to address climate-induced migration? And what exactly are they responsible for? I find that international agreements on climate change and refugees/migration sufficiently overlap with the needs of Pacific communities to provide us with five common responsibility-sharing principles and goals that are potentially useful in the South Pacific climate migration context: the ability to pay principle, polluter pays principle, prevention, emissions reduction and (funding) adaptation. Notwithstanding responsibility-sharing’s negotiation difficulties, these responsibility-sharing principles have significant congruence with Pacific communities’ needs and demands, and thus provide us with a valuable starting point for an Oceania agreement on climate-induced migration that is informed first and foremost by the needs of those who may have to leave their homes.</p>

Beyond burdens and climate refugees: a stocktake of international responsibility-sharing and South Pacific climate-induced migration

<p>This paper provides a ‘stocktake’ of common responsibility-sharing principles and goals in international agreements on climate change and refugees/migration to date and investigates how these principles might inform an Oceania agreement to deal with the emerging issue of South Pacific climate-induced migration. Where international agreements on climate change and refugees/migration overlap I identify a set of responsibility-sharing principles and goals and investigate their compatibility with the needs and demands of Pacific communities facing the prospect of climate-induced displacement. In this paper, I tap into ongoing political and academic debates concerning if and how we ought to differentiate states’ environmental responsibilities. I ask whose responsibility is it to address climate-induced migration? And what exactly are they responsible for? I find that international agreements on climate change and refugees/migration sufficiently overlap with the needs of Pacific communities to provide us with five common responsibility-sharing principles and goals that are potentially useful in the South Pacific climate migration context: the ability to pay principle, polluter pays principle, prevention, emissions reduction and (funding) adaptation. Notwithstanding responsibility-sharing’s negotiation difficulties, these responsibility-sharing principles have significant congruence with Pacific communities’ needs and demands, and thus provide us with a valuable starting point for an Oceania agreement on climate-induced migration that is informed first and foremost by the needs of those who may have to leave their homes.</p>

The Right to Seek Asylum of ‘Climate Refugees’

Although the issue of climate change mitigation and adaptation is fortunately evermore widely discussed, the problems facing ‘climate refugees’ only appears sporadically in the discussions adding to the current confusion. Taking recent and forecasted trends into account, the UN declares that states have serious moral obligations to provide humanitarian protection to all those displaced. The question which the international community and international lawyers face is whether states have more than just a moral obligation to provide protection. In this paper I will assess whether or not there are any roots in the various sources of international law – such as conventional law, customary international law, or the fundamental principles of international law – for the legal definition of ‘climate refugees’.