This article analyses emerging international human rights law jurisprudence on climate change displacement and the right to life, notably Ioane Teitiota v New Zealand. This case is the first time the Human Rights Committee has recognised climate change is a threat to the right to life, and thus that states may have non-refoulement obligations to ensure ‘climate change refugees’ are not returned to dangerous environmental conditions. This article will first critically analyse Ioane Teitiota v New Zealand, before discussing how these emerging human rights norms on climate change displacement are expanding state obligations to address climate change.
The South Pacific is at the forefront of climate change, often portrayed as a region drowning in rising seas. The IPCC reports that the mean sea level of the tropical South Pacific is rising faster than the global average, increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, salination of fresh water sources, and predictions of territory loss in the coming decades. These changes heighten food and water insecurity, contribute to higher disaster-related fatalities and damage, and increase migration and the risk of inter-communal violence.This emerging reality has been labelled by the Human Rights Council as a ‘pressing’ human rights threat, notably to the right to life with dignity. Indeed, in Ioane Teitiota v New Zealand, the Human Rights Committee accepted that climate change was a threat to life that would make countries like Kiribati ‘uninhabitable’ in the coming decades. But human rights – deemed inalienable and fundamental – exist in tension with another pillar of international law – state sovereignty.