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climate refugees
'Groundbreaking' Report Calls for Protecting Rights of Climate Refugees
"ICAAD's report incorporates lived-experience testimony and in-depth cross-disciplinary research to propose an innovative and, most importantly, practicable legal standard for the right to life with dignity," an advocate said.
Jul 03, 2024
A human rights group on Wednesday released what it called "a gift to the international legal and climate action communities" to support their efforts to protect people around the world displaced by the fossil fuel-driven planetary emergency.
The "groundbreaking" policy brief from the International Center for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD) was crafted to fill a "void in international human rights law" using the insights of Indigenous and climate frontline communities, attorneys, climate modeling experts, social scientists, researchers, and data analysts.
Already, the climate emergency is displacing people within and beyond their home countries. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, over 117.3 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2023 for a range of reasons. The report comes as Hurricane Beryl is leaving a trail of destruction through the Caribbean.
The Institute for Economics & Peace has estimated that by 2050, ecological disasters and armed conflict could forcibly displace about 1.2 billion people, about 10% of the global population. Given such warnings, ICAAD's report urges countries to "adopt inclusive, evidence-based legal frameworks" for climate refugees that center on "the right to life with dignity" (RTLWD).
The brief builds on a January 7, 2020 decision from the United Nations Human Rights Committee. As the document details:
Ioane Teitiota and his family sought to remain in New Zealand after migrating from Kiribati. Though the claimant identified how environmental degradation and its downstream impacts would violate his family's right to life with dignity, the majority of the committee did not find that returning the claimant to Kiribati would violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), citing a lack of individualized and imminent harm. Nevertheless, the committee did provide a significant opening by recognizing that environmental degradation could be so severe as to violate Article 6, right to life (with dignity), and Article 7, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment (CIDT). This policy brief's analysis centers on Article 6, right to life with dignity, by first looking at the origin of the term "dignity" in legal contexts and how it should be applied today when considering climate-induced displacement.
After examining the etymology of "dignity," its use in international human rights law, and meanings in non-European philosophies and cultures, ICAAD proposed a legal standard for determining whether a climate-displaced person's RTLWD has been violated.
Under the group's standard, the right has been violated if they are deprived of, or are at risk of being deprived of:
- Life or access to basic necessities of life, including but not limited to potable water, food, or shelter;
- Security from serious illness or injury, whether physical or psychological; or
- Something that is fundamental to the identity, conscience, or the exercise of human rights of the applicant and of a particular social group to which the applicant belongs, including but not limited to the ability to engage in cultural practices vital to the particular social group.
ICAAD also offered an evidentiary standard for tribunals charged with considering a displaced person's application: "An applicant is entitled to protection and nonrefoulement if there is a reasonable chance that the applicant will suffer, in the applicant's lifetime, a violation of their right to life with dignity."
"In cases where multiple similarly situated applicants with familial or community ties apply for protection, some of whom satisfy this reasonable chance standard and some of whom do not, complementary protection should be extended to a nonqualifying applicant if denying protection to the nonqualifying applicant would violate any applicant's RTLWD," the group emphasized.
The new brief points out that "the proposed legal standard could also be adopted in national immigration policies, bilateral immigration policies, and internal relocation policies," highlighting that "in May 2019, a group of eight Torres Strait Islander people submitted a complaint against the Australian Government to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, alleging that Australia's failure to protect them from climate impacts was a violation of their rights under the ICCPR."
In a Wednesday statement, Yumna Kamel, co-founder and executive director of Earth Refuge, welcomed that "ICAAD's report incorporates lived-experience testimony and in-depth cross-disciplinary research to propose an innovative and, most importantly, practicable legal standard for the right to life with dignity for climate-displaced persons."
In addition to recommending legal and evidentiary standards, she noted, the brief "goes so far as to provide a guide to incorporating scientific modeling into future cases."
"The legal standard and overall thesis proposed is one that Earth Refuge would readily support and indeed seek to apply in pursuance of the rights of climate-displaced people," Kamel said. "It provides the practical, conscientious answers to the questions that those working in this field, and those experiencing these travesties, have been asking for years."
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International Court Holds Climate Hearings in Brazil After Deadly Floods
"We need leaders to invest in the recovery of agriculture, in education, and in environmental plans and public policies with adequate resources and personnel," said a 17-year-old from Peru.
May 27, 2024
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Monday continued hearings in Brazil for a requested advisory opinion on countries' obligations related to the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
After Chile and Colombia sought an advisory opinion from the IACtHR, hearings began in Barbados last month and kicked off in Brazil last week, as climate and humanitarian experts sounded the alarm about recent extreme flooding in the South American nation that killed at least 169 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.
The people of El Bosque, the first Mexican community to be officially recognized by authorities as climate-displaced, are among the groups demanding climate justice before the court, with support from Greenpeace Mexico, Nuestro Futuro Mexico, and Conexiones Climáticas.
"Countless claims by communities around the world who have suffered too long from harms imposed on them by colonialist, extractivist business practices, are a testimony to how the fossil fuel and agribusiness industries are impairing the full exercise of all of our human rights and also how the states are failing to guarantee these basic but fundamental rights," said Greenpeace Mexico climate campaigner Pablo Ramirez in a statement Monday.
According to Greenpeace, "In written observations filed before the IACtHR... the El Bosque community asks the court to establish that states have an obligation to develop climate adaptation policies which effectively address internal displacement due to climate impacts."
Others are calling on the IACtHR to "listen to and learn from children and adolescents about how we are living through the climate crisis and its impact on our rights," as Camila, a 14-year-old from El Salvador, put it. She testified before the court on Friday.
"Climate change is affecting our right to health in many ways, for example, causing deaths and illnesses from extreme heatwaves, storms, and floods, toxic air pollution, droughts, food shortages, the spread of diseases like cholera and dengue fever, and serious infections from increased animal diseases that are transmitted to people," Camila said. "All this, in turn, generates poverty and displacement."
Joselim, a 17-year-old from Peru who also provided testimony, emphasized that "looking after Mother Earth is urgent because time is against us. Children, adolescents, young adults, and humanity in general should enjoy a healthy, clean, dignified, and safe environment. This requires change to rebuild a conscious society, in which children and adolescents are active participants."
"We should take care of the Earth we live on and preserve humanity. My call to action for authorities is to respect our Mother Earth, preserve it, and take care of it," she continued. "We need leaders to invest in the recovery of agriculture, in education, and in environmental plans and public policies with adequate resources and personnel. We need them to promote recycling, using renewable energy, and adopting agricultural production techniques that are friendlier to nature so that more children and adolescents can enjoy a healthy, clean, and safe environment."
Victoria Ward, regional director for Save the Children in Latin America and the Caribbean, noted the devastating floods in Brazil and also urged the court to take seriously the comments from the two teenage girls and other young people.
"Climate change is mostly affecting those who are least responsible for the damage—children. Those children already facing hunger and conflict, poverty and discrimination, are suffering most of all," Ward said. "Across Latin America and the Caribbean, we have recently seen unprecedented heatwaves and droughts that have forced schools to close, and caused long-lasting damage to crop and agriculture that is sending food prices skyrocketing and pushing families into poverty."
"Children are demanding change," she said. "Their powerful experiences and solutions will only make the fight against climate change stronger. And we know that the only way adults can truly protect children's rights is by including children in making decisions that affect them. That's why it's fantastic to see Joselim and Camila using this platform to speak out about how the climate crisis is eroding the rights of children across the region. Let's hope they are listened to."
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) has joined with other groups to submit multiple amicus briefs to the court, and on Monday had a senior attorney testify about the need "to ensure the protection of those who defend human rights and the planet."
Summarizing Luisa Gómez's comments, CIEL said she stressed that the court "has a historic opportunity to clarify the rights to information, participation, and justice, and in doing so, change the future of the world's deadliest region for environmental advocacy."
The hearings in Brazil are set to run through Wednesday. Campaigners hope the IACtHR will issue an opinion that builds on recent decisions from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
As Common Dreamsreported last week, the ITLOS issued an advisory opinion that greenhouse gas emissions are marine pollution under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and parties to the treaty "have the specific obligation to adopt laws and regulations to prevent, reduce, and control" them.
That followed an April ruling from the ECHR in favor of KlimaSeniorinnen, or Senior Women for Climate Protection. The court
found that the Swiss government has violated the human rights of its older citizens by refusing to abide by scientists' warnings and swiftly phase out fossil fuels.
Pointing to those cases on Monday, Greenpeace envisioned an IACtHR opinion that will "further strengthen states and business enterprises' obligations to take the necessary measures to reduce, prevent, and control greenhouse gas emissions, in line with best available science and international law obligations."
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Beyond Bullets: Bringing Climate Justice to the Asylum Process
There is a growing movement of displaced people who are sharing our stories of climate and displacement and calling for recognition of climate change in asylum and refugee policies.
Apr 22, 2024
I was born in a small village in the heart of Afghanistan, but most of my childhood was spent as a refugee in Quetta, Pakistan. My family returned to Afghanistan in the early 2000s after the American invasion. Both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I grew up amid the chaos of conflict, and the sounds of bullets and bomb blasts were a part of my daily life.
However, the conflict that loomed the largest for my family was between people and nature. Like many from our village, leaving became inevitable for my family as our homeland was transformed by drought into a barren wasteland again and again. As resources dwindled, we were forced to chase water, which became increasingly scarce and expensive. Like so many others, my family became nomadic, changing homes, cities, provinces, and countries in search of water to survive. Afghanistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable places to climate change, and as I write this, the country is undergoing the worst drought in decades.
A decade later, in 2017, I applied for asylum in the United States. When I attempted to include this narrative of my community’s plight from drought and natural disasters in my application, my lawyer strongly advised against it. Instead, I was encouraged to focus solely on the impacts of war and my triple minority identity as a Hazara-Shia-Afghan woman. It didn’t make sense to try to separate the religious and political persecution I faced from the reality that my ancestral village, once verdant and flourishing, had been reduced to dust by decades of unyielding drought. My attorney seemed fixated on presenting me as a “Western-educated Hazara-Shia-Afghan woman” fleeing persecution and ignoring any mention of the environmental devastation that compelled my family to flee our homeland numerous times.
Amid these struggles with armed conflict, corruption, and dictatorship, there lurks another adversary: global warming, the silent killer.
Unfortunately, my attorney’s stance proved valid. There are currently no systems or protections in place for individuals displaced by climate impacts under U.S. or international law. My asylum application was approved with a selective narrative devoid of the true underlying causes of my displacement.
As I became an immigrant rights advocate, first at the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition and now as the director of We Are All America, I connected with fellow asylum seekers with the same thread of environmental injustice woven throughout their stories. I met people who, like me, saw their vulnerabilities multiplied by the climate crisis and faced much more intricate, intersectional challenges than our current asylum pathways recognize.
Paul, an asylum seeker from Congo, is one such example. He and his family of farmers initially fled due to war, but when floods and heavy rain destroyed their new home in Kenya, they were forced to seek refuge elsewhere. After experiencing this double displacement, Paul sought resettlement in Canada because he knew the U.S. didn’t have a protected asylum pathway that aligned with his experience.
Amid these struggles with armed conflict, corruption, and dictatorship, there lurks another adversary: global warming, the silent killer. Despite its profound impact, our stories about it are often left untold, overshadowed by tales of violence and persecution. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, climate is now the leading cause of global displacement, surpassing conflict. Our limited asylum policies shape the very stories of our displacement, masking the extent to which climate change is interwoven with other root causes and warping climate-displaced people’s perceptions of what makes a valid reason to move to safety
However, there is a growing movement of displaced people, like Paul and myself, who are sharing our stories of climate and displacement and calling for recognition of climate change in asylum and refugee policies. Some asylum seekers and their lawyers are beginning to include climate impacts as a central part of their cases, and attempting to set precedents that would require immigration judges to consider them. In the past few years, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies started tracking asylum cases with prominent climate impacts and already has an extensive number in their database, including some promising successes.
There’s a lot the Biden administration could do to support these efforts. In one of his first executive orders, President Joe Biden created an inter-agency task force on climate and migration. However, three years on, the task force has produced little tangible action. Meanwhile, advocates have offered a number of immediate actions for the administration to take, from prioritizing the resettlement of climate-impacted refugees to training USCIS officials to consider climate impacts as a supporting factor in asylum claims.
Of course, the need to update the United States’ outdated refugee and asylum policies is at the heart of this issue. Last year We Are All America’s sister project, the Climate Justice Collaborative, led a broad coalition of immigrant, refugee, and climate justice organizations that supported the reintroduction of Sen. Edward Markey’s (D-Mass.) Climate Displaced Persons Act (CDPA). The CDPA would create a new visa program parallel to refugee resettlement, specifically for people facing forced displacement due to climate impacts. It would also create a global climate resilience strategy to help vulnerable countries, like mine, adapt to climate change. This is the kind of bold policy change we need to bring our country into the modern age and build a life-sustaining future in the face of the climate crisis and its intersectional impacts on our society.
Climate displacement is not a far-off problem for future generations. It is happening now and has been happening for decades. Our voices have just been silenced, and our experiences have been buried by those deemed valid by our antiquated asylum policies. We deserve the same empathy and support as those fleeing bullets. It’s time for policy to reflect that.
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