Introduction: The Rising Tide of Displacement
In a world both literally and figuratively adrift, it is important to recognise that it is also physically shifting.
With rising sea levels, deepening droughts, and coastlines eroding not only land, but established ways of life, legal regimes and frames of policy are being pressure tested. Across the Asia Pacific and beyond, communities are seeing the water around them inching higher year after year, with relevant policies and formal action seeming to lag behind.
Climate-induced displacement is becoming ever more an unfolding reality than a warning, pressing against the inadequacy of existing legal definitions and the elasticity of development frameworks.
This piece takes up the challenge it poses through two intertwined lenses:
- Firstly, the fragmented legal landscape struggling to accommodate a category of mobility it was not designed for; and
- Secondly, the development and environmental consequences that seem to be defying containment within juridical borders.
Together, these perspectives reveal a global blind spot that appears to call not only for technical fixes, but a reimagining of responsibility, protection, and even planetary belonging.
Definitional Vacuum: Who Counts as a Climate Refugee?
The displacement of populations due to environmental degradation, sea level rise, and climate-driven disasters presents a significant conceptual challenge. Members of these populations generally fall outside the scope of the key international protection instruments which largely comprise authority for the international refugee protection regime.
Illustratively, the 1951 Refugee Convention,[1] established shortly after the conclusion of the Second World War and framed by the exigencies of persecution and political upheaval, does not encompass those fleeing environmental harm. It is a regime predicated on intentional human action, engaging predominantly with persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, rather than ecological collapse.[2]
Consequently, attempts to apply traditional refugee frameworks to instances of environment-related displacement have encountered significant difficulty. For example, the New Zealand case of Teitiota v Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment,[3] and its subsequent review by the UN Human Rights Committee, underscores the limits of existing jurisprudence. The matter involved the New Zealand Supreme Court’s consideration of whether the claimant and his wife, Kiribati nationals, were entitled to rights to remain in New Zealand on bases of, inter alia, being refugees in light of devolving environmental conditions in their home Tarawa, Kiribati.
While the Court denied the claim on the basis that, in effect, the devolving environmental conditions did not invoke protection obligations, it also observed:
‘… both the Tribunal and the High Court, emphasised their decisions did not mean that environmental degradation resulting from climate change or other natural disasters could never create a pathway into the Refugee Convention or protected person jurisdiction. Our decision in this case should not be taken as ruling out that possibility in an appropriate case’.[4]
While on review of the New Zealand Supreme Court’s decision, the UN Human Rights Committee accepted in principle that climate-induced displacement could, in extreme cases, trigger non-refoulement obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,[5] for example in circumstances where it can be established that there is a personal and not general risk of suffering irreparable harm, the bar remains set high, and the protection gap clearly persists.[6] As an illustration of its line of reasoning, the Committee expressed the following view:
‘9.3 The Committee recalls paragraph 12 of its general comment No. 31 (2004) on the
nature of the general legal obligation imposed on States parties to the Covenant, in which it
refers to the obligation of States parties not to extradite, deport, expel or otherwise remove a
person from their territory when there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real
risk of irreparable harm such as that contemplated by articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant. The
Committee has also indicated that the risk must be personal, that it cannot derive merely from
the general conditions in the receiving State, except in the most extreme cases, and that
there is a high threshold for providing substantial grounds to establish that a real risk of
irreparable harm exists.’[7]
In response to the aforementioned lacuna, a range of emerging concepts have surfaced in policy and academic literature such as slow-onset disasters, habitability thresholds, and climate mobility. These seem to a reflect a growing institutional understanding of environment-related displacement as a process rather than a singular event. However, these conceptual advances have yet to clearly translate into binding legal protections. In essence, climate-displaced persons remain structurally invisible. They seem to be acknowledged in soft law, such as in those views considered above, but otherwise continue to go unrecognised by the legal instruments that actually allocate rights and impose obligations.
Consequently, the definitional vacuum seems to:
- Limit access to lawful migration pathways;
- Frustrate claims before domestic courts for asylum or humanitarian relief; and
- Inhibit the development of coherent international and domestic strategies in response to the real issues posed by environment-related displacement.
International Law: Patchwork Protections and Political Paralysis
Despite the real threats posed by climate-induced displacement, the international legal regime that purports to address it appears scattered and politically compromised. No single treaty or institution presently offers coherent or binding protection for those displaced by environmental degradation. Instead, what exists is a patchwork of seemingly disjointed legal instruments, fragmented across climate change frameworks, migration compacts, and human rights law which each apparently struggle to rise to the magnitude and specificity of the modern challenge.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) provides the clearest acknowledgement of the link between climate change and displacement,[8] especially through its Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage which ‘seeks to address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change, including extreme events and slow onset events.’[9] Still, the UNFCCC refrains from establishing enforceable rights or obligations regarding human mobility.
Simultaneously, the UN General Assembly’s Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (‘the Compact’) is relevantly groundbreaking in its recognition of environment-related drivers of migration.[10] However, it is fundamentally non-binding and altogether reliant upon voluntary state commitments. Consequently, the Compact on its face seems to reinforce, rather than resolve, the dilemma of sovereignty confronting any suggestion of cross-border climate-related mobility.
Specific efforts such as the Nansen Initiative and its successor, the Platform on Disaster Displacement, seem to have made progress in clarifying normative gaps and facilitating cooperation. Their work, particularly on concepts such as cross-border displacement in the context of climate change and disasters, seeks to assist with the development of national policies and soft law.[11] Generally, however, these initiatives, like the Compact, also appear anchored in the language of guidance and consensus rather than enforceability.
Even relevant regional responses, where innovation might be expected, appear uneven. The Kampala Convention in Africa represents a rare binding regional treaty that explicitly addresses internal displacement caused by natural disasters, even making provision for state parties being liable to make reparations to internally displaced persons for damage when they refrain from protecting and assisting persons displaced by natural disasters.[12] The Pacific Islands Forum, an inter-governmental organisation, also appears to advance dialogues regarding mobility and climate resilience.[13] Still, most regional frameworks seem to either adopt humanitarian approaches or remain in early conceptual stages, leaving displaced persons on the ground with limited legal certainty.
The present regime appears a system heavy on acknowledgements, yet light on guarantees. Considering the various recognitions of climate-induced displacement as an emerging issue and apparent abundance of normative discussions, the relevant paralysis on the point of legal certainty seems to stem not from a lack of conceptual clarity, but from the political cost of codifying and otherwise enforcing protections that might constrain sovereign discretion. The evident result is climate-displaced populations remaining in legal limbo, perhaps referred to in policy discussions and regional consultations, yet unable to avail of any relevant rights that states are obliged to honour.
Development and Environmental Implications: More Than Legal Protection
The exercise of exploring climate-induced displacement as a phenomenon naturally demands more than an academic analysis of its legal frameworks. It is a complex issue that also engages frameworks of development and environmental justice, as it threatens practical realities such as livelihoods, access to social services, land tenure, culture, and identity. On-the-ground realities show the human cost of climate displacement.
When people in affected areas are displaced, they are generally forced to leave behind their traditional ways of making a living, oftentimes their respective occupations in agriculture and fishing. As such displaced persons contend with losing the physical and economic environments they rely on for food, income, and security, commonly across multiple generations, they become more susceptible to taking on exploitative and dangerous work to compensate for the loss.
Even in circumstances where such people are fortunate enough in the wake of climate-induced displacement to be moved to nearby locations with similar environments, allowing for better transition and continuation, they often end up facing greater competition for access to natural resources and basic services. The consequent strain is felt both by displaced persons the original residents of such locations who must in turn adapt to the increased competition.
Increased tensions between relocating and recipient communities also tend to accompany displacements, with cultural and identity differences often complicating co-operation and integration. Since relocating communities generally do not have the upper hand in relevant relational dynamics, refugees often face pressures of assimilating, even when they hold few if any similarities to their recipient communities. Such pressures tend to impede upon the capacities of displaced communities to build and sustain institutions that would allow them to preserve precious cultural nuances, such as traditional ceremonies, native histories, and indigenous knowledge systems forming their cultural identities.[14]
Unfortunately, even on account of their practical struggles, the interests of climate-forced migrants are often not prioritised by their representative local government bodies. Without support, they remain disadvantaged, vulnerable, and constrained from taking meaningful steps towards rebuilding their lives with dignity.
The serious consequences of climate displacement, seen through a development and environmental lens, suggest that legal protection is not the only area that requires attention in the exercise of addressing the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement. There seems to be a growing need to institutionalise inclusive, effective, and sustainable support systems for climate refugees.
Such undertakings appear to require clear, comprehensive, and integrated approaches–pursuing legal protections while facilitating participatory planning, with focuses on culturally sensitive development and equitable resource access.
Domestic Responses: Gaps, Good Practice, and the Strain of Sovereignty
Climate change and mass displacement are humanitarian and development issues that are becoming increasingly intertwined. Often, it is the Global South that is disproportionately affected, with gaps in relevant legal and institutional frameworks, as well as resource scarcity, limiting the respective capacities of nations within that group to effectively respond and manage internal displacement.
The case of Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, it is estimated in 2022 that 7.1 million Bangladeshis have been driven from their homes due to rising sea levels and riverbank erosion.[15] To respond and to holistically address needs for climate resilience, food security, clean water, economic growth, and environmental sustainability, the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 was formed to provide a long-term strategy. The integrated strategy involves relocation and flood resilience plans, directly identifying vulnerable areas and prioritising projects for those regions.[16]
Still, the massive scale of displacement and environmental degradation faced by residents in low-lying coastal areas like Khulna and Barisal seems to be challenging the government’s ability to effectively respond and adapt. Moreover, heavy dependence on international donor funding calls the overall sustainability of the strategy into question.
Fiji’s Planned Relocation Guidelines
When the villages of Narikoso and Vunidogoloa in Fiji faced rising sea levels and severe climate effects that forced relocation, the Fiji government offered the relevant experiences and challenges encountered in addressing the situation as key case studies in the development of Planned Relocation Guidelines (PRG). The framework was co-created by the government, non-governmental organisations, and civil society leaders, and was made to provide clear direction for communities at risk of displacement due to rising sea-levels.
To ensure its implementability and sustainability, the PRG was aligned with broader adaptation strategies for the Fiji government’s Five-Year and Twenty-Year National Action Plans and other relevant national and international frameworks. To complement the PRG, the Fiji government also established the Relocation Trust Fund for People Displaced by Climate Change, which assists relocation in cases of internal displacement caused by climate change disasters.[17]
The case in Sudan
Elsewhere, in Sudan, long periods of drought and desertification have been the causes of mass internal displacement, with relevant governmental capacities to respond severely hampered and fragmented due to ongoing conflict and political instability.
Such factors have also had a multiplying effect on the scale of environmental degradation and displacement within its borders, with 1 in 3 Sudanese forced to flee for survival.[18]
Overall
Due to differing circumstances, levels of engagement, and the scope and execution of plans, the effectiveness of government responses to climate-induced displacement greatly vary.
While governments in countries such as Bangladesh and Fiji seem ready and able to take meaningful steps towards institutionalising relocation plans, many others still fail to recognise climate-induced displacement as a phenomenon. Consequently, it is not uncommon for refugees in such environments to be addressed with mismatching measures, designed and calibrated for other displacement drivers.
Despite several examples of forced migration due to climate change, many governments globally still have failed to form let alone incorporate relocation strategies for those at risk or affected by it. One view is that the slow-onset nature of the phenomenon is being relied upon as a ratio by which the issues are practically brushed aside, leading to protection gaps and reactive approaches.
The real and serious consequences of climate-induced displacement suggests that more needs to be done, and there may be something to the anticipatory and adaptive frameworks being developed by governments like Fiji and Bangladesh. Vietnam’s Mekong Delta Plan poses another point of reference, as a practice model that seems to integrate climate scenarios into urban and rural planning to prevent climate-induced displacement. Such integration is complemented and supported by an apparent direction to invest in green infrastructure (i.e. mangrove restoration and floodplain creation), and a commitment to strong multi-sectoral and government co-ordination.[19]
Additional problems from a development standpoint
Since climate refugees usually stay within their own country’s borders, they are often classified as internally displaced persons (IDPs), meaning they do not generally qualify for international legal protection. In the rarer circumstances where they do cross national borders, climate refugees are then faced with the legal vacuum of the 1951 Refugee Convention considered earlier.[20]
Moreover, accessing international legal protection is made more difficult due to the increasing politicisation of border control, a phenomenon becoming ever more prominent in the Global North, especially in the United States of America. The relevant policy misalignments across nations render mass reform and co-ordination extremely difficult to achieve. Even sustainable solutions such as planned relocation or local integration have been becoming increasingly challenging to carry out in recent times due to lack of resources, land, and, perhaps most importantly, political will.
The Path Forward: Toward Co-operative and Cohesive Solutions
Considering the effects of climate-induced displacement and the apparent shortcomings of existing frameworks to address the relevant practical realities, it seems to be becoming not only desirable, but necessary, to begin rethinking and challenging traditional concepts of sovereignty founded on borders, boundaries, and control. Emerging climate risks are not bound by the physical and imaginary walls originally built to establish and protect borders.
What follows are some recommendations for addressing climate-induced displacement from a development lens:
- Responsibility for People
Relevant policy focal points should move from border control to the protection of the human lives being directly affected by environmental degradation. Goalposts should shift from national security to human security.
- Building Mobility Pathways
Countries in the same regions often face similar (if not identical) climate threats. As such, strategic free movement agreements would improve the capacities of affected persons to move to safety when they need to.
- Environmental Justice
A sense of collective responsibility needs to be built for our shared planet, involving the encouragement and promotion of meaningful contributions and accountability on the part of all countries, not just those which are being adversely affected right now.
Conclusion: A Challenge Beyond Borders
The growing practical recognition of climate-induced displacement as a phenomenon highlights the ever-increasing misalignment between emerging global realities, especially on the ground, and arguably outdated legal and development frameworks. As rising sea levels and slow-onset disasters redraw coastlines and destabilise day-to-day lives around the world, the international legal regime remains fragmented and politically cautious, while development responses seem to arrive either too late or haphazardly.
Addressing this modern challenge seems to demand more than definitional tweaks or soft law consensus. It is a live issue that, among other pressing global issues, may well pose a compelling case for sustained international co-operation, adaptive national policies, and a reimagining of protection that transcends traditional notions of sovereignty.
As considered throughout this piece, governments have a vital role to play in creating and implementing resilience plans that are inclusive of vulnerable communities and forward-looking in addressing future risks. At the global level, a spirit of climate solidarity must guide action, particularly from countries with greater historical contributions to industrial development. Such nations are well-placed to support recovery and adaptation efforts in regions most affected by climate-related impacts, and that support can take many forms, including financial assistance, technical cooperation, and knowledge-sharing.
Crucially, international coordination must evolve to reflect the realities of a changing climate, including exploring frameworks that enable safe, voluntary, and dignified movement for those displaced by environmental change.
The mobility crisis of the future has already arrived. The question that remains is whether our political wills, jurisprudence, and institutions will respond in kind to the shifting tides.
[1] Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 28 July 1951, entered into force 22 April 1954) 189 UNTS 137 (‘the 1951 Refugee Convention’).
[2] The 1951 Refugee Convention, art 1.
[3] [2015] NZSC 107.
[4] Teitiota v Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment [2015] NZSC 107, para 13.
[5] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 19 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171.
[6] UN Human Rights Committee, Views adopted by the Committee under article 5(4) of the Optional Protocol, concerning communication No 2728/2016 (Ioane Teitiota v New Zealand), UN Doc CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016 (24 October 2019).
[7] UN Human Rights Committee, Views adopted by the Committee under article 5(4) of the Optional Protocol, concerning communication No 2728/2016 (Ioane Teitiota v New Zealand), UN Doc CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016 (24 October 2019), para 9.3.
[8] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (adopted 9 May 1992, entered into force 21 March 1994) 1771 UNTS 107.
[9] UNFCCC, Decision 2/CP.19: Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts (31 January 2014) FCCC/CP/2013/10/Add.1.
[10] UNGA Res 73/195 (11 January 2019) UN Doc A/RES/73/195.
[11] Platform on Disaster Displacement, Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD) Strategy 2024-2030.
[12] African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (adopted 23 October 2009, entered into force 6 December 2012), art 12.
[13] Pacific Islands Forum, 2050 Strategy Implementation Plan.
[14] See for example: Richard Black and others, ‘The Effect of Environmental Change on Human Migration’ (2011) 21 Global Environmental Change S3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.10.001; Ingrid Boas and others, ‘Climate Migration Myths’ (2019) 9 Nature Climate Change 901 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0633-3.
[15] Saleemul Huq and Saeed Ul Haque, ‘Climate-Induced Displacement, Loss and Damage in Bangladesh’ (ICCCAD, 7 March 2023) https://icccad.net/publications/climate-induced-displacement-loss-and-damage-in-bangladesh/.
[16] Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 (2018).
[17] Celia McMichael, Mereoni Katonivualiku and Teresia Powell, ‘Planned Relocation and Everyday Agency in Low-Lying Coastal Villages in Fiji’ (2019) 185 Geographical Journal 325 https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12236.
[18] USA for UNHCR, ‘Sudan Crisis Explained’ (UN Refugee Agency USA, 2024) https://www.unrefugees.org/news/sudan-crisis-explained/.
[19] Deltares, Mekong Delta Plan – Long-Term Vision and Strategy for a Safe, Prosperous and Sustainable Delta (2013).
[20] See for example Jane McAdam, ‘Protecting People Displaced by the Impacts of Climate Change: The UN Human Rights Committee and the Principle of Non-Refoulement’ (2020) 114 American Journal of International Law 708 https://doi.org/10.1017/ajil.2020.31.
