Episode 011: Climate change driving displacement & deterritorialization: The current legal framework

Nomosphone: A Global Law Podcast

What are the options for people who are forced to move due to floods, droughts, heat waves, melting ice and extreme storms? What happens when entire States, such as low-lying islands in the Pacific, lose territory due to these and other impacts of climate change? The communities most impacted are increasingly being forced to flee within and across national borders. However, they are not protected under most national immigration schemes; nor do they qualify as refugees under international law. Two countries, including Finland and Sweden, recently abolished humanitarian protection clauses that protected individuals unable to return to their countries of origin due to environmental disasters. A United States Court rejected a claim from the Native Alaskan town of Kivalina for compensation due to territory loss, which is forcing the town to relocate. While New Zealand is reportedly drafting a climate change refugee scheme, the Supreme Court denied protection and deported a Kiribati national seeking asylum due to environmental reasons. Most recently, though, two Italian courts decided to protect two people fleeing environmental disasters. In this episode, we assess the current legal framework for persons displaced and territories disappearing in the context of climate change, and call on the international community to advance legal mechanisms for mitigation and adaptation. Many thanks to Dr. Joseph Foukona (University of the South Pacific Law School), Dr. Michael Gerrard (Columbia Law School) and Dr. Chiara Raucea (Tilburg Law School) for their generous contributions to the episode; ELSA Tilburg for organizing the climate change lecture serious; and Dr. Phillip Paiement and Dr. Anna Marhold for their research guidance. This episode was produced and narrated by Joseph Orangias and Alec Smith. Be sure to subscribe to our Soundcloud and Facebook pages to stay up to date on our most recent episodes. And if you like what we do, please leave us a review in iTunes - it really helps get the word out about Nomosphone! A special thanks to Hindenburg podcast editing software. We acknowledge the following image and audio clips were used in original format in accordance with Creative Commons licensing: ‘As an extremely low-lying country, surrounded by vast oceans, Kiribati is at risk from the negative effects of climate change, such as sea-level rise and storm surges,’ by Erin Magee/DFAT (CC BY 2.0); ‘Seagull on beach’ by squashy555 (CC0 1.0); ‘Find Nothing’ by Tri-Tachyon, https://soundcloud.com/tri-tachyon (CC BY 3.0); ‘Indian Ocean – distant rumble’ by sexpistols (CC BY 3.0). Licenses: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode