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https://theconversation.com/climate-impacts-are-forcing-people-from-their-homes-when-how-and-why-do-they-have-valid-refugee-claims-248865>
"For a long time, it seemed refugee law had little relevance to people fleeing
the impacts of climate change and disasters.
Nearly 30 years ago, the High Court of Australia, for instance, remarked that
people fleeing a “natural disaster” or “natural catastrophes” could not be
refugees.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Canada had said “victims of natural disasters”
couldn’t be refugees “even when the home state is unable to provide
assistance”.
It was back in 2007 that I first started considering whether international
refugee law could apply to people escaping the impacts of drought, floods or
sea-level rise. At the time, I also thought refugee law had limited
application. For a start, most people seeking to escape natural hazards move
within their own country and don’t cross an international border. That fact
alone makes refugee law inapplicable.
Refugee law defines a refugee as someone with a well-founded fear of being
persecuted for reasons of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion
or membership of a particular social group.
So one challenge was in classifying supposedly “natural” events as
“persecution”, which requires an identifiable human actor.
It was also widely thought such events were indiscriminate and couldn’t target
people on account of their race, religion or one of the other five grounds.
This is partly why some advocates called for an overhaul of the Refugee
Convention to protect so-called “climate refugees”.
However, we have learned a lot in the intervening years."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
