Focusing again on climatic statelessness
Over the last couple of years I have been blogging about climatic statelessness.
Climatic statelessness is not yet a firmed-up concept, more a way to think about what happens, in reality and under international law, when a state no longer exists as a result of the effects of climate change. How might we strengthen legal and international frameworks to protect, remedy and respect the rights of individuals and communities that could permanently lose their homes?
I started by considering some of the challenges in protecting those who have, or might become, stateless as a result of climate change displacement or migration. I then went on to consider the law on statelessness specifically, and whether the answer lies in states’ obligations under the Statelessness Conventions, both under the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and under 1961 Convention on the Reduction on the Reduction of Statelessness. In the third instalment, I examine whether the law on statehood and the criteria for statehood and how that law might apply to a small island state submerged by rising sea levels and climate events.
I then went on to ask whether we can look beyond the normative hierarchy created by international law to ensure that the concept of citizenship remains meaningful for those most impacted by climate change. In my latest blog on the subject, I reflected on the outcomes of COP26 in Glasgow. I considered whether adaptation commitments by the international community can start to address climatic statelessness. Adaption is crucial to ensure that small island states and communities are not rendered stateless and homeless.
Read more in my blog for the European Network on Statelessness
Most recently I pulled together some thoughts on the subject of climatic statelessness for the excellent European Network on Statelessness blog. I considered whether international law can respond to that challenge and offer protection to those at risk of climatic statelessness. I focus again on the two Statelessness Conventions, noting that scholarship on the impact of climate change on migration has tended to focus on refugee populations, but that we need to think urgently of the impending risks of statelessness for affected populations.
Is there sufficient protection under existing frameworks?
There are limits to what this branch of international law can do. The Statelessness Conventions seek to ensure that no one is born or becomes stateless. This effectively creates a hierarchy of only two possible states: statelessness as the undesirable state and citizenship as the desirable one. I highlight that the Conventions do not recognise a third tier in the hierarchy of preference. Some people may prefer to have the nationality of their home country rather than just any nationality. Can we really maintain that the binary option of statelessness vs. any nationality offers sufficient protection to an entire body of citizens who have lost their state and their citizenship?
