S. CONTENTS PG.

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1. ABSTRACT 2

2. OBJECTIVE 2
3. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM 2

4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 3

5. HYPOTHESIS 3
6. METHODOLOGY 3
7. INTRODUCTION 4
8. MAIN TEXT 5
9. CONCLUSION 9
10. SUGGESTIONS 10

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ABSTRACT:
“Under the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention, a refugee is a person who "owing to well-
founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is
unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that
country".1This research paper is about climate change refugees, Climate change refugees are
those people who migrate from their homeland to other countries due to harsh or unbearable
weather conditions. The major focus of this research paper is about the climate change refugees
and their problems, with specific focus on why they have not been included into the UN refugee
convention. There are various reasons supporting both sides, both in this research paper we
will mainly focus on why the climate refugees are not part of the UN Refugee Convention.

Objective:
The objective of this study is to understand how exactly climate change refugees are, and
how they sustain in the modern world. Also, what caused or created them, i.e. global
warming, disasters etc. Another main objective is understanding UN Refugee convention and
why climate change refugees are not included in them and to check if there is scope to
include them in the future, so that they can get their respective rights.

Statement of Problem:

Climate change refugees are an increasing global phenomenon, due to global warming and
other technological developments, large number of people are getting displaced from their
homelands. All these reasons should allow climate change refugees to be included in the UN
Refugee Convention. Which would give them access to rights and opportunities like other
refugees. But there are various reasons preventing this from happening, one of the main
reasons would be, most of the displacement activities would occur within the country and not
across international borders2, this main reason is supplemented by other reasons preventing
the climate change refugees to be part of the UN refugee convention. There is scope for the
climate change refugees to be included, to prove this, in this research, I shall bring out the
parallel conditions or reasons which other refugees share in common with climate change
refugees.

1
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/climate-refugee.htm
2
https://disasterdisplacement.org/staff-member/seven-reasons-the-un-refugee-convention-should-not-
include-climate-refugees

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Research Questions:

1. Who are the climate change refugees and what is UN Refugee Convention?
2. What are the various reasons why climate refugees are not included in the UN
Refugee Convention, is there scope in the future to include them?

Hypothesis:

Climate change refugees will be included in the UN Refugee Convention in the future.

Research Methodology:

The research methodology used here is Doctrinal Legal Research. Doctrinal Legal Research
meant taking abstract information from various sources and consolidating them in a
systematic manner. After exhaustively collecting the data, this data is then consolidated and
analysed with the purpose of drawing a substantive conclusion from it. The reason why this
research methodology has been chosen, is because, in this paper, the aim is to understand
climate refugees, with the use of various sources, and consolidating a view on the topic. This
consolidated view would be used to analyse the laws and policies implemented against this
topic as well. Doing this type of research would help lead to the ability to make a conclusion
which encapsulates the data and also help us see whether or not the hypothesis can be
achieved or not.

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Introduction:

Global warming is the most trending subject of 21st century. Events regarding global
warming keep happening. It is even predicted that if all the ice in Greenland melts, the sea
level will rise by 7 meters, that will basically submerge 85% of all cities in the world3. The
effects of global warming can be seen in every part of our life, some of the major impact of
global warming are as follows;Ice is melting international, in particular on the Earth’s poles.
This includes mountain glaciers, ice sheets overlaying West Antarctica and Greenland, and
Arctic sea ice. In Montana's Glacier National Park, the wide variety of glaciers has declined
to fewer than 30 from extra than a hundred and fifty in 1910.Much of this melting ice
contributes to sea-level upward thrust. Global sea stages are rising 0. Thirteen inches (3.2
millimetres) 12 months, and the upward thrust is happening at a quicker price in latest years.
Rising temperatures are affecting natural world and their habitats. Vanishing ice has
challenged species inclusive of the Adélie penguin in Antarctica, where a few populations at
the western peninsula have collapsed by way of 90 percentage or more. As temperatures
exchange, many species are on the pass. Some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants have
migrated farther north or to higher, cooler areas. Precipitation (rain and snowstorm) has
improved throughout the globe, on average. Yet a few areas are experiencing extra extreme
drought, growing the chance of wildfires, misplaced crops, and ingesting water shortages.
Some species inclusive of mosquitoes, ticks, jellyfish, and crop pests—are thriving. Booming
populations of bark beetles that feed on spruce and pine timber, for instance, have devastated
tens of millions of forested acres inside the United States of America.4Due to these reasons
and many more certain sets of people are forced to leave their homeland, for example; If your
city is struck by drought, where will you go? This question now needs to be answered by
thousands of people worldwide due to climate changes. These people are known as climate
refugees. In the mid-1980s, El-Hinnawi defined environmental refugees as "people who have
been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a
marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people) that jeopardized their
existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life".5 The major reason climate
refugees leave their home is due to the inability to survive, that is, the place where they
carried out their livelihood became inhospitable.

3
https://www.globalresearch.ca/?context
4
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/global-warming-effects/
5
http://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/2651

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1951 Refugee Convention:

The 1951 Refugee Convention is the key legal document which governs or dictates the rules
regarding refugees. Ratified by way of 145 State parties, it defines the term ‘refugee’ and
descriptions regarding the rights of the displaced, as well as the legal responsibilities of States
to guard them are mentioned in it.6 There are various rights and obligations provided to the
refugees, these rights need to be provided by the country they seek asylum. The 1951
Convention contains a number of rights and also highlights the obligations of refugees
towards their host country. The main principle of the convention is that the country were the
refugees come cannot send them back, this principle applies only when the person faces life
threatening problem in their homeland. This protection cannot be claimed if the person is
considered to be threat to the community at large.7 The convention actually draws inspiration
and builds upon article 14 of 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The various rights guaranteed to the refugees under this convention is as follows:

 exempt refugees from reciprocity (Article 7): That means that the granting of a right to a
refugee should not be subject to the granting of similar treatment by the refugee's country
of nationality, because refugees do not enjoy the protection of their home state.[17]
 be able to take provisional measures against a refugee if needed in the interest of essential
national security (Article 9)
 respect a refugee's personal status and the rights that come with it, particularly rights
related to marriage (Article 12)
 provide free access to courts for refugees (Article 16)
 provide administrative assistance for refugees (Article 25)
 provide identity papers for refugees (Article 27)
 provide travel documents for refugees (Article 28)
 allow refugees to transfer their assets (Article 30)
 provide the possibility of assimilation and naturalization to refugees (Article 34)
 cooperate with the UNHCR (Article 35) in the exercise of its functions and to help
UNHCR supervise the implementation of the provisions in the Convention.

6
https://www.unhcr.org/1951-refugee-convention.html
7
https://www.unhcr.org/about-us/background/4ec262df9/1951-convention-relating-status-refugees-
its-1967-protocol.html

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 provide information on any national legislation they may adopt to ensure the application
of the Convention (Article 36).
 settle disputes they may have with other contracting states at the International Court of
Justice if not otherwise possible (Article 38)8

Much has recently been written on the question of the protection of environmental migrants,
that is, people displaced in connection with climate refugees. The idea of reforming
international refugee law through an amendment to the 1951 Convention relating to the
Status of Refugees was swiftly rejected, in part through fear of undermining the fragile
achievement of the protection of refuges, but also partly because substantial differences
analogy. Though they are referred to as climate refugees, they essentially do not fall under
the category of refugees, the main reason is because they are not defined in the term refugees,
basically they are refugees due to climatic conditions or due to various disasters, this
condition is not present in the official definition in the 1951 UN Convention. There are
various reasons for not including them in the convention. In this research, certain important
reasons will be highlighted and explained.
Most of the displacement activities that take place due to climatic conditions or disasters
takes place within the domestic borders of the country and not in the international arena. For
example. According to the United Nations report; Sixty-seven per cent, or 2.4 million, were
in India, most of them associated with monsoon season floods in Bihar that led to more than
1.6 million displacements between mid-July and October. It said while China, the Philippines
and India have the highest absolute numbers, small island states suffer disproportionally once
population size is taken into account.9 In this context, the people who were displaced were
displaced within the countries, like in this case the displacement was due to flooding in the

8
Convention and protocol relating to the status of refugees-
https://www.unhcr.org/protect/PROTECTION/3b66c2aa10.pdf
9

economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/58793766.cms?from=mdr&utm_source=contentofinterest
&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

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low- level regions of Gujrat, so the people moved towards the neighbouring high lands. But
they did not actively engage in migration to other countries.

One of the main reasons is, changes due to climatic conditions takes place in a slow pace and
the actual impact happens in a predictable manner in most cases. This is in contrast with the
flight situation refugees are normally under. For example. The Syrian refugees due to the war
were in desperate need to get out of the country because every hour in the country would be
dangerous for their life, so they used every possible means to get out of the country. One of
the main ways through which they escaped was via sea, this posed huge number risks and
ultimately thousands of people of lost their lives. As of now no major displacement due to
climatic conditions as occurred in this magnitude.

Another reason climate refugee are not taken seriously is due to the fact that most
displacement activities regarding climate change is usually accompanied by other main
reasons why refugees migrate, such as wars, violence etc. Though these reasons are
supplemented by drastic climate change, more emphasis is given to the important factors, the
main reason for this is because the above-mentioned factors are defined in the 1951 Refugee
Convention.

One of the major drawbacks of opening up the 1951 Refugee Convention for changes would
make the framework of the convention much loose and also it will comprise the existing
powers being provided to the refugees. Including one more category basically weakens or
becomes disadvantageous to the other existing categories of refugees. Some experts argue
amending the convention would bring more harm than bringing out actual benefit to the
refugees.

Another argument put forth is that its not exactly law that is required to solve refugee crisis,
but the political will and action needs to be in place to prevent the prevailing global refugee
crisis. Already only 145 countries are member parties to the convention, though there are
major countries which receives huge influx of refugees, these countries still turn a blind eye
towards the convention and deal with these refugees in their own terms, usually going against

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the principles mentioned in the convention. It’s basically not the absence of law but the lack
of political will to back it up.10

Discussed above are the various reasons why climate refugees are not inducted into the 1951
Refugee Convention, there are various other reasons also, but these reasons are the main ones
preventing them from being included.

Now talking about whether there is scope to include climate refugees in the Refugee
Convention, the above-mentioned reasons needs to be addressed and dealt in order to make
space for climate refugees in the convention.

The argument that climate change takes place in a slow pace and the results of the change can
be predicted might apply in earlier or past conditions but in the contemporary times owing to
technology and development, climate changes are taking place drastically and predicting
them is becoming increasingly difficult. Sudden changes create huge number of problems, in
specific these are not problems regarding living but whether one can survive in those
conditions. Especially disasters, which happen very quickly and takes time to restore the
conditions to normal. In a study it was found more people are displaced due to natural
disasters than war.11 These disasters makes thousands of people stranded without homes and
they usually look for a place or country to seek asylum.

Most climate changes only bring about displacement within a country is flawed in many
aspects. In certain cases, the entire country gets havocked by natural disasters such as floods,
fires, droughts, nuclear disasters etc. In these cases, it is not possible for the people to move
towards the un affected part of their country, the need to find a new place to survive. This
again depends upon the impact of the climate induced change or the magnitude of the
disaster. Anyways, the broad generalisation that climate change will bring out only internal
displacement is not accurate.

Another reason pointed out that why climate refugees should not be part of the refugee
convention is because it is considered climate change in isolation is not responsible for
displacement of people rather it is taken as a catalyst in the process of displacement primarily

10
Jane McAdam, seven reasons the UN Refugee Convention should not include ‘climate refugees’
https://disasterdisplacement.org/staff-member/seven-reasons-the-un-refugee-convention-should-not-
include-climate-refugees
11
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/17/natural-disasters-refugee-people-war-2013-study

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due to the main reasons such as war, violence. This is exactly not true in the modern times
when we can see major disasters that takes place wholly due to climate change or natural
disasters. For example, the Typhoon Haiyan alone displaced some 4.1 million, with others
forced out by typhoon Trami and an earthquake, which was completely responsible for
displacing all the people out of the area.12

Any law or convention that remains ideal and does not undergo amendments will fail to serve
its purpose, that is the ability to serve the people. The argument that amending the convention
will make the convention weaker might be true, but it is not possible to let the convention be
ideal and not allowing it to change would also weaken it or completely destroy its entire
purpose. Every law or convention needs to undergo changes in order to withstand the
challenges of time and be true to its purpose.

Though political will is essential in implementing rules, it also very important that there are
appropriate laws and conventions that will backup political sovereignty and it also makes it
much easier for the governments or countries to follow an already established law or
convention, than themselves creating their own laws which are mostly temporary in nature
and beneficial for the country than for the party it will directly affect. All these call for a
codified convention that will be uniform and serve its purpose concisely.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, it is now well understood that climate change can have diverse consequences
on multiple human rights, particularly on economic, social and cultural rights. Environmental
phenomena that generate migration might affect the enjoyment of multitude of rights, such as
the rights to life, health and food, along with partially recognised rights, such as the rights to
a healthy environment and to development. All these factors make climate change refugees a
real concern and in the contemporary times this group of refugees are going to increase and
necessary provisions are needed to be made in order to ensure they get the rights enjoyed and
also to make sure they do not get out of hand. So, through my research it is proved that there
is scope in the future to include climate refugees in the UN Refugee Convention.

12
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/17/natural-disasters-refugee-people-war-2013-study

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Suggestions:

Some of the suggestions regarding climate refugees would be:

1. Having a humanitarian perspective towards refugees in general, specifically towards

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