Migration, 'Climate Change Refugee' and Global Justice

Salako, Solomon E. (2025) Migration, 'Climate Change Refugee' and Global Justice. Beijing Law Review, 16 (2). pp. 1260-1285. ISSN 2159-4635

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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 borders and have a well-founded fear of persecution. Climate change refugees are persons who flee for reasons other than persecution and who do not have legal status. And yet, preventive responses of international law to climate change refugees raise 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 international environmental law; (iv) to discuss the migration options; (v) to discuss disappearing states, statelessness and relocation; and (vi) 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.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information and Comments:	Copyright © 2025 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0).
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Business, Law and Criminology > School of Law and Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	eprints api
Depositing User:	eprints api
Date Deposited:	07 Jul 2025 14:26
Last Modified:	07 Jul 2025 15:21
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4697

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