Climate Justice as a Foundation for Climate Migration Policy

Abstract: This thesis aims to examine the relationship between climate justice and climate migration. The goal is to describe this relationship’s place in international policy making. Impacts from climate change will make certain areas of the world uninhabitable, inducing so-called “climate migration”. The number of migrants is predicted to be between 200 million and 250 million by 2050. Currently, there is no international law or mechanism that protects people displaced by climate change, something that is crucial in order to avoid a humanitarian disaster. Through a literary study of previous research a few of the proposals for forming international law concerning climate migrants that have been put forward will be outlined. The most frequently brought up proposals are adding a separate section to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), adding climate migrants to existing international laws on refugees or creating a new and separate treaty. When developing mechanisms for climate migration, a foundation in climate justice allows responsibility to be put on those who caused the problem. However, the concept of climate justice is not a set principle in international law, making it difficult to use as anything more than an argument if not a completely new treaty is drafted. By incorporating existing human rights law and treaties on climate change into climate migration mechanisms, a cohesive and just migration process where human well-being is in focus can be realized whilst the time-consuming process of creating an entirely new treaty is avoided.