Migration, ‘Climate Change Refugees’ and Global Justice

Abstract

The ill-effects of climate change caused by the emission of greenhouse gases are droughts; storm surges which destroy infrastructure, housing and crops; and rise in sea levels which adversely affect small island states which could eventually be submerged and force citizens who flee because of the ill-effects of climate change to be described as ‘climate change refugees’. Refugees under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol are persons who cross international borders and have a well-founded fear of persecution. Climate change refugees are persons who flee for reasons other than persecution and do not have legal status. And yet, preventive responses of international law to climate change refugees raise the issues of global justice. The objects of this paper are: (i) to evaluate the proffered extension of International Refugee Law to climate change refugees; (ii) to discuss the role of international human rights law as a complementary protection for climate change refugees; (iii) to evaluate the protection under environmental law; (iv) to discuss the migration options; and (v) to assess critically the feasibility and desirability of a Climate Change Treaty based on a monist – naturalist conception of global justice privileging human dignity as one of its guiding principles.