The Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness and UNHCR have issued the world’s first Global Recommendations on Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change.
The Global Recommendations on Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change respond to the urgent need safeguard every person’s right to a nationality as the climate crisis deepens.
The damaging effects of climate change amplify the existing vulnerabilities of stateless persons. Already fragile livelihoods and housing situations can be disrupted as a result of the immediate and flow-on effects of extreme weather events such as floods or storms and slow-onset phenomena such as sea-level rise and desertification. Stateless persons might have limited capacities to recover, be excluded from existing climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction measures and miss out on emergency preparedness, response and recovery initiatives.
The negative impacts of climate change can also create or heighten the risk of losing one's nationality and lead to new cases of statelessness, particularly if people are forced to move within and across borders. These risks can arise where civil registration coverage is low or identity documents are lost, damaged or become inaccessible; where births go unregistered during periods of displacement; where nationality laws contain discriminatory provisions; or where laws and procedures do not adequately safeguard against loss or renunciation of nationality that would leave a person stateless.
The Global Recommendations focus on practical measures that States and other stakeholders can take now to identify and protect stateless persons, and to reduce and prevent statelessness in climate-vulnerable contexts.
The Global Recommendations are grounded in international law and policy frameworks on the right to a nationality, the prevention and reduction of statelessness, human rights, climate change, disaster risk reduction, and human mobility. They are specifically guided by universally applicable principles in international law, including equality and non-discrimination, the right to life with dignity, the duty of international cooperation, and the right to participate.
The Global Recommendations also honour the growing recognition under international law — including by the International Court of Justice — of ‘continuity of statehood’ in the context of sea-level rise and resulting loss of territory.
View the Global Recommendations (under embargo until 22 September)