HUMAN SECURITY IN THE PACIFIC:

THE CLIMATE REFUGEES OF SINKING ISLANDS

Abstract:

“People whose livelihoods and survival depend on lands are swelling the ranks of environmental
and economic refugees who are testing the already stretched resources of towns and cities
across the developing world.” (UN Secretary General, December 5, 2007)

In the recent years, global warming has become an increasingly urgent universal concern.
Probably, the most important environmental challenge in the history of modern world is now
widely recognised to be a result of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions level
increase, generally produced by man-activity.

It is generally well-accepted that this climate change will have serious environmental,
economic and geopolitical consequences. The scientific projections of increased global
temperatures present the prospect of rising sea levels and associated risks to coastal areas,
increased risks of floods and droughts, new and exacerbated public health issues and threats to
biodiversity and the viability of numerous ecosystems around the world. Economically, the
impact of global warming could be dramatic, considering only the prospective 50 to 250 million
displaced people in the next 50 years. Nevertheless, the climate change impact also involves the
geopolitical arena, several states being directly threatened by the increased pollution activities of
other countries and facing imminent disappearance.

In this context, the complex problem of the Sinking Islands represents a relatively
controversial and new aspect of global warming. The crisis faced by multiple islands nations due
to rising sea levels that are in turn a result of climate change in principal, is also supported by a
general passivity of the international community in regard to the life of the Pacific Islanders,
with severe global costs, as ecological disasters and civilizations collapse.

This paper aims to analyse the case of Sinking Islands as a scientific demonstrated fact
from the environmental point of view, particularly focused on the climate change as main cause.
With quality and academic progressive interpretation of the law the paper will focus on the
refugee aspect of the problem and the forced migration process, as a subsidiary effect. The legal
analysis will be naturally corroborated with the international human rights law and the related
supporting documents and conclusively offering legal solutions under the umbrella of
international law to this global cutting edge problem.

It is obligatory that these branches of international law, from which perspectives the
problem will be analysed (environmental, refugee and human rights) to be regarded and
interpreted as interdependent and interconnected fields, as they together constitute the legal core
of the problem. Furthermore, only intrinsically connected and not viewed in isolation from each
other, the three main ‘perspectives’ could provide a better legal identification, collating and
enforcement of the international obligations to protect the Pacific Islanders, along with more

Cosmin Corendea – abstract

Refugee Law in the Era of Globalization
Brussels, November 12-14, 2008
sustainable and equitable policy responses to this global predicament. The present work shall
also extract its innovative component from the research and analysis of the problem itself,
supported by developed action-oriented case studies on specific Pacific Islands, contributing
inter alia an academic insight in the field of international law.

In addition for this conference, one of the purposes of this paper is to extend the previous
work in the ‘Climate Refugee’ field in regard to a broad recognition and acceptance of the term
in international (refugee) law and to explore the potential application of the ‘Economic Refugee’
idiom, sui generis and its inevitability of use in this globalized refugees context.

Hereby, the salient objective of the paper is to evaluate the challenge of the Sinking
Pacific Islands, supported by research and policies analysis of the legal or legislative
developments at international and national levels for countries within the region (e.g.: new
domestic legislation, constitutional amendments, significant case law), finally aiming the global
aspect of the issue, its worldwide concern and the eventual international comprehensive plans of
action, proposed in the conclusions and recommendations of the paper.

Cosmin Corendea – abstract

Refugee Law in the Era of Globalization
Brussels, November 12-14, 2008