When Islands Disappear, So Do Cultures

The Merits of Climate Migrants

Climate Migrants are a relatively new topic of international discussion. Other forms of migration, be it refugees, asylum seekers, or voluntary migrants, have been recognized in international law, but climate migrants have yet to be officially recognized. Climate migration is its own category with its own needs, concerns, and necessary protections that this page will explore further. Climate change can mean life or death, but what is often left out of the conversation, is the potential for cultural extinction.

Ioane Teitiota v. New Zealand

In 2015 Ioane Teitiota filed a case against New Zealand claiming that the country had violated his right to life under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Covenant by sending him back to his home country of Kiribati. Teitiota had sought asylum in New Zealand because of climate risks and environmental degradation in his country in 2012 but immigration authorities denied his request.

The committee recognized that climate change was a valid reason to seek asylum and that states with clearly established refugee determination systems must honor that claim. That being said, the Tribunal concluded that the evidence presented did not indicate that Teitiota was in “imminent” danger, as article 6 of the Covenant requires.

The outcome of this case is relevant for a number of reasons. On one hand it acknowledges that environmental degradation is a valid basis for one to seek asylum, paving the way for more inclusive refugee policy in the future. But on the other hand, it sets a harmful precedent that the climate related threats that people around the world are facing are not “imminent” in nature. The threat of climate change is still deemed a future threat by states and organizations like the UN, rather than a present-day complex issue with relevant impacts like the ones we see in Ioane Teitiota v. New Zealand. In this case, the Tribunal noted that in Kiribati the consequences of “population growth, urbanization and limited infrastructure development, particularly in relation to sanitation” had been greatly exacerbated due to climate change. The sea level rise in Kiribati had resulted in land disputes, environmental damage, and saltwater contamination of scarce freshwater supplies. Although the climate change risk in Kiribati is high, these conditions are not viewed as “imminent” threats to the security of Kiribati's population.

Amendments to current refugee regulations are necessary in order to safeguard the rights of small island nations and climate migrants. The reality is that the threats of climate change, although not imminent in the same way that persecution, war, and poverty are, have life altering impacts on vulnerable populations all over the globe. As long as climate change remains an invalid reason to seek asylum, the consequence of climate change will continue to affect vulnerable populations and more and more people will be forced to live without adequate means for survival.

Source: ICLEI OCEANIA

“The action taken by New Zealand is more like forcing a drowning person back into a sinking vessel, with the “justification” that after all, there are other passengers on board. Even as Kiribati does what it takes to address the conditions, for as long as they remain dire, the life and dignity of persons remains at risk.” - UNHCR Committee Member Duncan Laki Muhumuza

The Issue of Autonomy

Refugees as they exist currently, do not have much autonomy over where they reside or what resources are available to them. The Refugee convention does not acknowledge the right for political refugees to choose their host countries. Instead, registered asylum seekers can request to be resettled in certain states, but states are not obligated to approve their request.

One reason for this is the quota laws that exist within the European Union, which dictate how many refugees for which each member state is charged with providing visas, work permits, and basic needs. Refugees are supposedly protected under laws, UN agreements, international norms, and non-legally binding agreements (such as the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact for Refugees (GCR)), however burden-sharing and free riders within the EU have become a concern and there is a lack of legal and institutional framework for climate induced migration specifically. Some leaders of vulnerable nations, such as Kiribati’s former President Anote Tong, have rejected the idea of involuntary migration and the label of “refugee” on the principle that they do not wish to be treated the same way as political refugees and would rather have more autonomy.

When Islands Disappear, So Do Cultures

The reality of the climate crisis is that not just groups of people, but entire cultures and nations will be forced to migrate and abandon their homes. This will undoubtedly have a huge impact on cultural preservation of that nation’s cultures, traditions, and practices. This makes the notion of autonomy even more relevant. Without any legal protections in place, SIDS are concerned about inevitable assimilation, cultural erasure, and the potential loss of cultural identity that may occur as they migrate to more westernized countries with histories of cultural dominance.

“The islands are ants and the industrialized nations are elephants.”

– Teburoro Tito, Kiribati’s former president

Source: Wikimedia Commons

In order to maintain some sense of autonomy, there have been discussions surrounding the notion of the “detteritorialized state proposal.” The proposal assumes that eventually, small island nations will be flooded and essentially uninhabitable and that people of small island states will continue to have sovereign control over what used to be their territorial waters.

There has been a lot of debate over this proposal. Although not discussed seriously, there is an argument that migrants from SIDS will still have lost an important function of their self-determination rights: their independence. They will have lost political control, authority to establish justice, and enforce policies that serve them and protect their rights and culture. Although this solution would retain certain elements of self-determination, migrant groups will still lose the majority of their independence.

Indigenous scholar Taiaiake Alfred expresses his opinion on sovereignty in his book, Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto, in which he states, “sovereignty is an exclusionary concept rooted in an adversarial and coercive nation of power” (Alfred 59). He feared that if indigenous people were granted sovereignty, they would be considered second-status citizens within the State. Although sovereignty would safeguard some rights for climate migrants, it’s important to consider whether sovereignty may also be used as an excuse by the federal government to ignore the special needs of climate migrants and SIDS. If not sovereignty, there must be other protections of cultural practices.

Current UN agreements and international accepted human rights accounts for the right to practice one’s culture, but climate change has already been a significant threat to culture, especially for SIDS and Indigenous Peoples. For example, during the 2005 Inuit Circumpolar Conference, a climate petition was organized that accused the United States a violating the human rights of Inuit people by continuing to fuel global warming and failing to reduce carbon emissions. The Inuit community argued that global warming’s effect on sea ice and the overall ecosystem would affect their ability to fish and hunt, practices essential to their physical and cultural survival. Although the petition failed due to inefficient evidence of harm, it shows how climate change affects cultural practices and frames cultural preservation as a human right.