Title:
What Lies Ahead: How Aid for Climate Refugees Must Focus on Human Rights and Human Health
Authors:
Steven A. Kolmes holds the Rev. John Molter, C.S.C., Chair in Science in the Environmental Studies department at the University of Portland, Oregon
Sara K. Kolmes - A PhD in philosophy focused on bioethics from Georgetown University, and is a clinical ethicist at Providence Health & Services in Oregon
& Pei-Hsuan (Franzi) Lin - A PhD candidate in the Government Department, Georgetown University, where she researches borders and refugee rights
Published:
Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 26 April 2022
From the article:
Two widely recognized attempts at comprehensive descriptions of human rights of refugees exist, and they have produced influential sets of criteria that could be used in determining whether someone who requests refugee status will have it granted. Both of these sources recently released statements commenting on the possible status of climate refugees, responding to migrants attempting to gain refugee status due to factors they attribute to the increasing impacts of climate change (the September 2020 General Distribution of its Views Adopted by the Committee under Article 5 (4) of the Optional Protocol, Concerning Communication No. 2728/2016 by the UN Human Rights Committee; and the March 2021 Pastoral Guidelines on Climate Displaced People from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development). These documents highlight two different approaches it is possible to take toward environmentally related refugee status petitions, and the impacts these discrepant approaches will have for real people seeking refugee status as this crisis plays out. The case study of Ioane Teitiota and his family, from Kiribati, and of their unsuccessful attempt to claim status as climate change refugees is presented and analyzed.
This article focuses on the fates of those who attempt to claim refugee status due to events they ascribe to climate change. The ways that discussions of people who leave their homes en masse are framed are complicated. The United Nations’ (UN’s) relevant legally protected category for those leaving their homes has been “Refugee” since 1951.1 As a unique legal protection has been tied to the “Refugee” category, we focus on the result of people’s appeals that they attain this category.