The common but differentiated responsibilities of states to assist and receive ‘climate refugees’

Date01 October 2015
DOI10.1177/1474885115584830
Published date01 October 2015
Subject MatterArticles
EJPT
Article
The common but
differentiated responsibilities
of states to assist and
receive ‘climate refugees’
Robyn Eckersley
University of Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
This paper examines the responsibilities of states to assist and to receive stateless
people who are forced to leave their state territory due to rising seas and other
unavoidable climate change impacts and the rights of ‘climate refugees’ to choose
their host state. The paper employs a praxeological method of non-ideal theorising,
which entails identifying and negotiating the unavoidable tensions and trade-offs asso-
ciated with different framings of state responsibility in order to find a path forward that
maximises the protection of climate refugees within the constraints imposed by political
feasibility. It argues that the responsibility of states to support climate refugees through
financial and technical assistance should be treated separately from their responsibility
to receive them. The former is a differentiated responsibility grounded in the ability to
pay principle, or relative capability, while the latter is a common responsibility grounded
in the fact that all states have causally contributed to their plight, albeit in varying
degrees which cannot be, and need not be, precisely determined. A common state
‘responsibility to receive’ is linked with a right on the part of climate refugees to choose
their host to suit their circumstances, which would provide a form of partial compen-
sation for the injustice and trauma of their loss and damage. This right is expected to
become more viable, and the political willingness of states to receive them more likely,
the more that climate refugees are assured of adequate support for resettlement
according to states’ differentiated responsibilities to assist.
Keywords
Climate-induced migration, ‘Climate refugees’, common but differentiated responsibil-
ities, polluter pays principle, beneficiary pays principle, ability to pay principle, non-ideal
International Mechanism on Loss and Damage
European Journal of Political Theory
2015, Vol. 14(4) 481–500
!The Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885115584830
ept.sagepub.com
Corresponding author:
Robyn Eckersley, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia.
Email: r.eckersley@unimelb.edu.au
Introduction
Since the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, debates about state burden sharing have been pre-
occupied with the allocation of responsibilities for mitigation, adaptation and cli-
mate f‌inance. This paper draws on these debates to address the relatively neglected
question of the responsibilities of states to assist and receive international migrants
who are forced to leave their territory as a result of the unavoidable impacts of
climate change. This is a politically opportune time to be asking such questions
given that the parties to the UNFCCC agreed in 2013 to establish the Warsaw
International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change
Impacts (UNFCCC, 2013). This mechanism is expected to serve as a vehicle to
channel f‌inancial, technical and other support to developing countries that are
particularly vulnerable to the impacts of unavoidable climate change (including
slow and sudden onset events), which extends to population displacement, climate-
induced migration and loss of statehood. The structure and mandate of the Loss
and Damage mechanism will be reviewed in 2016, which provides an opportunity
to ask whether the agenda should be expanded to include what might be called ‘the
responsibility to receive’ on the part of host states, and the rights of climate
migrants to choose their host when internal migration is no longer an option.
1
Migration induced by climate change, like other forms of migration, sits along a
continuum ranging from those seeking a better life to those who are moving to save
their lives. While the Warsaw mechanism should extend to cover all cases of loss
and damage associated with unavoidable climate change impacts, the particular
focus of this discussion will be conf‌ined to international climate migrants who are
forced to leave their territory permanently due to rising seas and other unavoidable
climatic impacts.
2
These climate migrants, most of which are expected to come
from small island developing states (SIDS), do not qualify as refugees under the
1951 Refugee Convention because they are not f‌leeing political persecution.
Moreover, some SID leaders, such as Kiribati’s President Anote Tong, have
rejected the refugee label as undignif‌ied, since island people do not wish to
move, and they do not wish to be treated like political refugees (ABC, 2014).
Nonetheless, I use the term ‘climate refugees’ to describe this particular group in
order to focus on the similarities and dif‌ferences with political refugees that might
be ethically and politically relevant in determining state responsibilities and refugee
rights (without endorsing this label for the proposed protection regime).
The UNFCCC’s burden sharing principles of ‘equity and common but dif‌fer-
entiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’ (hereafter CBDR-RC) apply to
both mitigation and adaptation (see Articles 3(1), 4(1) and 4(3)). On one view,
international migration may be regarded as the ultimate form of adaptation to
devastating climatic impacts and therefore the UNFCCC principles should
extend to guiding the allocation of the burden sharing for climate refugees (e.g.
Bierman and Boas, 2008).
3
Yet it can also be argued that this particular form of
migration is a response to the limits of in-country adaptation and, in any event, is a
form of loss and damage that cannot be reduced to adaptation. The preamble to
the decision establishing the Warsaw Mechanism acknowledges that loss and
482 European Journal of Political Theory 14(4)

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