Climate Refugees: Redefining Shelter Rights Under International Humanitarian Law

Somya Singh, B.B.A. LL.B (H.), Law College Dehradun, Uttaranchal University, Dehradun (Uttarakhand)

Prof. (Dr.) Poonam Rawat, Professor, Law College Dehradun, Uttaranchal University, Dehradun (Uttarakhand)

ABSTRACT

The article advocates the expansion of the definition of shelter rights to accommodate climate refugees, a growing category of rights-less people who are displaced from their homes by climate-induced environmental degradation. The increasing prevalence of the phenomenon of climate refugees is juxtaposed against their legal nonexistence and the absence of norms and rules for their formal protection by international law. It meticulously explains the definition of the category of climate refugees and the difficulties in determining their number. The article clearly distinguishes them from the category of environmental migrants. And it emphasises the necessity to expand international humanitarian law to fit in the category of the climate refugees and meet their needs by co-opting financial mechanisms and the involvement of Non-State-Actors and civil society. It highlights the inadequacies of existing legal frameworks that did not take into account the massive displacement from climate change, such as the 1951 Refugee Convention and the Geneva Conventions. It proposes to extend the definition of who is a refugee to include climate disasters. One of the recommendations that comes up several times in the article is the need for a draft of a dedicated climate refugee treaty. The suggestion that refugee status determination techniques can be used to accommodate climate refugees also comes up. The methodology used is the systematic method to research laws and international instruments on human rights and refugees. It followed a conceptual approach where the researcher formulated the main objective of the research and started to search for related literature. The European law integration elicited mixed feelings among the founding fathers of the European project.

Keywords: Climate Refugees, International Humanitarian Law, Shelter Rights, Environmental Migration, 1951 Refugee Convention, Climate Change-Induced Displacement