Executive Summary

            Forced migration has been practiced for centuries. Traditionally, the need to escape persecution and political instability has motivated refugees and forced migrants to leave their countries of organization and travel elsewhere for a better and safer life. However, the presence of climate change across the world has created new reasons for people to leave their homelands and search for lands that are more agarable, at a higher sea level, and better equipped to withstand the severe damage and flooding that can be caused by natural disasters such as tropical storms and hurricanes. Climate change-related migration is often performed when refugees displaced are displaced by environmental factors including but not limited to the ones aforementioned. However, there is not a solid definition of who a refugee that has been displaced by climate change is.

Almost every case of climate change-related migration is involuntary and influenced by natural disasters and the geographic features, shortcomings, adaptations (or lack thereof), and barriers that make human residents unable to adapt to their homelands’ multiple challenges. At times, forced migration can be associated with armed conflicts, but a large number of refugees displaced by climate change are forced to move because of reasons that have nothing to do with an active military engagement or official war. Currently, the international community is responsible for a new class of legitimate refugees that are in need of assistance from their peers, their governments, their governments’ regional and international allies, and international powerhouses like the United Nations.

The United Nations’ current batch of legislation identifies several types of migrants who are offered legal protections under international law. These protections are self-executing as well depending on the non-governmental organization’s interpretation; and this interpretation requires member states to assist refugees applying for asylum whenever possible. However, migrants who are displaced by climate change and apply for asylum in different countries do not fall under any of the traditional categories that the United Nations discusses in its previous conventions, protocols, and treaties. This is a problem because the number of refugees who are associated with climate change-induced disasters is increasing on a consistent basis. As a result, the threat of statelessness is becoming a more prominent problem in the Pacific Islands region of the world as well. The impending threat of statelessness is present because of small island states in the Pacifc region quickly becoming known as “sinking island states.” This new designation has arisen because of small island states’ low-lying physical geography being overtaken by rising sea levels. These consistently rising sea levels have some small island states projected to submerge within the ocean around them. These sinking island states’ condition will only get worse over time, and institutions like the International Organization for Migration have stated that small island states and their citizens only have so much time left to repair the problems that have led to their current situations.

At the same time, there are examples of countries that are actively speaking out against the implementation of new legislation that could help refugees displaced by climate change. For example, Lebanon, a country that is highly associated with the presence of refugees and an overall positive attitude towards them, does not want the United Nations to implement more refugee focused legislation into the international community. This is because the country believes that its relationship with neighboring Arab states and a desire to perform goodwill is what motivates it to accept as many refugees as it can. This goodwill led Lebanon to speak out against the creation of new legislation from international  non-governmental organizations that may eventually require states to take in refugees and bear the financial strain that they can cause to a country’s infrastructure. Other countries, like the United States, may state reasons that are the opposite of a desire to do non incentivized goodwill for their geographical neighbors, as the United States’ southern border has been a cause of conflict amongst the American government and Central American states and refugees for a long time.

The aforementioned examples show that the barriers preventing refugees displaced by climate from receiving legal protection are political, legal, ethical, and financial in nature. While the United Nations’ expedited activity would certainly benefit this group of forced migrants, there are post-legislation issues that countries would have to deal with once they are legally mandated to accept as many refugees displaced by climate as reasonably possible. Of course, this would not stop countries from having to accept refugees displaced by traditional problems as well; and this may cause governments to spend more than the billion plus Euro and U.S. dollar caps that they already reach when taking care of refugees that are already covered under previously enacted international law.

The following thesis will explore how neglected refugees displaced by climate change are within the field of international law. This research is necessary because there is little to no legislation directly targeted towards refugees displaced by climate change and the unique risks they faced as individuals who are being forced out of their homelands for reasons unrelated to war, terrorism, and political instability. This study’s contribution to the study and development of international law will be found in its ability to thoroughly discuss and compare the different political and theoretical rationales surrounding, legal protections targeted towards, and previous examples of poor political and/or legislative treatment of individuals facing forced migration and the risks associated with it. When referring to the risks associated with forced migration, this paper will initially defer to the problems which meet the criteria of the 1951 Refugee