Mobility Without Membership? Nationality (In)security in Pacific Migration Pathways in the Context of Climate Change

August 2026

In this blog, Laura Kraft (Research Fellow and PhD Candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany) argues that Australia and New Zealand’s permanent labour-based migration pathways for Pacific Islanders can create real, case-specific risks of de jure and de facto statelessness, and that Australia and New Zealand – as parties to the Statelessness Conventions and under broader cooperation obligations – should address this by ensuring timely, secure access to naturalisation.

As climate change increasingly affects livelihoods and long-term habitability across the region, migration to Australia and New Zealand is becoming an important strategy for Pacific Islanders to respond to environmental uncertainty – even as many would prefer to remain safely at home, and others are unable to migrate at all. Existing pathways include labour-based migration programmes such as Australia’s Pacific Engagement Visa (PEV) and New Zealand’s Pacific Access Category (PAC) Resident Visa, both of which provide opportunities for permanent residence abroad. Yet little attention has been paid to the long-term nationality implications of permanent, or extended, settlement through these and similar existing or emerging migration pathways. How might permanent migration affect nationality status? What risks of statelessness may arise, and for whom? What obligations do such risks trigger for states?

This blog argues that, under their current legal and institutional design, labour-based migration pathways for Pacific Islanders can create risks of both de jure and de facto statelessness in particular cases. The former is rooted in origin-state nationality laws permitting loss of citizenship after prolonged residence abroad, while the latter arises where receiving-state naturalisation timelines outlast the origin state’s declining capacity to provide protection as a consequence of climate change. Where such risks arise, Australia and New Zealand’s own obligations as receiving states are engaged. This follows from their status as parties to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (the 1961 Convention), and, for Australia, the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (the 1954 Convention), alongside broader obligations of international cooperation and solidarity in the context of climate-related mobility. One important way for Australia and New Zealand to give effect to these obligations in such cases is to ensure access to secure legal status and facilitate timely naturalisation for individuals at risk.

Risks of nationality loss and de jure statelessness

One source of statelessness risk arises from the nationality laws of some Pacific states, particularly provisions permitting loss of nationality following prolonged residence abroad. The Future of Nationality in the Pacific report (2022) notes that Pacific states such as Nauru and Samoa retain laws allowing deprivation of nationality for naturalised citizens residing overseas for extended periods (three and two years, respectively). These provisions become increasingly significant as growing numbers of Pacific Islanders utilise labour-based migration pathways leading to permanent settlement rights in Australia and New Zealand. This out-migration is driven by a “complex and interconnected myriad of push factors,” among them significantly higher available wages in Australia and New Zealand and environmental changes such as sea-level rise, prolonged droughts, extreme weather events, and other slow-onset events and disasters.

The case of Tuvalu specifically illustrates both these dynamics acutely. The 2023 Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty – a special human mobility pathway – provides 280 Tuvaluans each year with the opportunity to migrate permanently to Australia to work, study, and live. In its submission on the Treaty, the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness (PMCS) noted that Tuvaluan law permits deprivation of nationality for naturalised citizens residing abroad for extended periods (unlike Nauru and Samoa, Tuvalu’s law does not specify a fixed time period, but instead turns on whether the person still intends to make Tuvalu their permanent home). The PMCS argued that the Treaty should explicitly address the nationality implications of the pathway to support both states’ commitment to “human mobility with dignity”. However, the final Treaty does not address these concerns. The accompanying Explanatory Memorandum (which is not legally binding) only states that visa holders will be eligible to apply for Australian citizenship on the same basis as other Permanent Residents and that Australian citizenship will not affect Tuvaluan citizenship.

Such provisions permitting loss of nationality following prolonged residence abroad may be inconsistent with Article 7 of the 1961 Convention, which restricts deprivation or loss of nationality in situations that may result in statelessness, as well as broader international human rights protections against arbitrary deprivation of nationality. In principle, these risks of de jure statelessness should primarily be addressed by countries of origin through nationality law reform and stronger safeguards against loss of nationality. However, because Nauru, Samoa, and Tuvalu are not parties to the 1961 Convention, the Convention’s obligations do not bind them as a matter of treaty law. Nevertheless, The Future of Nationality in the Pacific reportrightly recommends amending nationality laws to prevent loss of nationality based on residence abroad.

The risk of de jure statelessness is therefore one challenge that some naturalised Pacific Islanders may face. Yet the more complex challenge raised by Pacific climate mobility may not be formal loss of nationality, but the emergence of conditions associated with de facto statelessness.

Risks of de facto statelessness

The gradual erosion of the protection that comes with nationality may give rise to conditions associated with de facto statelessness for some Pacific Islanders. As Jane McAdam observed in 2010, small island states such as Kiribati and Tuvalu are likely to become uninhabitable long before they physically disappear. As a result, people may no longer realistically reside in, or depend upon the protection and assistance of, their state of nationality, even though that nationality formally continues. This is a distinct concern from the continuity of statehood itself: the Pacific Islands Forum, the ILC, and the ICJ have all affirmed that statehood will persist notwithstanding climate change-related sea-level rise.

This scenario does not fit neatly within the concept of de jure statelessness, since the individuals concerned retain their nationality in law. Rather, it raises the possibility that individuals may experience conditions of de facto statelessness. Although there is no formal definition of de facto statelessness in international law, a person is generally considered de facto stateless where they hold a nationality, reside outside their country of nationality, and are unable, or, for valid reasons, unwilling to have recourse to that country’s protection. The scenario discussed, however, differs from the classic formulation of de facto statelessness in an important respect: the individual’s inability to have recourse to their country’s protection stems not from any fault of the state (or the individual), but from a decline in the state’s capacity to provide protection as a consequence of climate change.

This distinction also matters for how the appropriate remedy should be framed. The Final Act of the 1961 Convention recommends that persons who are stateless de facto should benefit from the provisions in the Convention to enable them to acquire an “effective nationality”. However, framing the goal as acquiring a more “effective” nationality risks implying that a Pacific Islander’s original nationality is itself deficient – which is inappropriate given that any decline in protective capacity results from climate change. This blog therefore speaks instead of the acquisition of an additional or complementary nationality.

The risk of de facto statelessness arising as a consequence of climate change is directly relevant to existing labour-based migration pathways for Pacific Islanders to Australia and New Zealand. While programmes such as Australia’s PEV and New Zealand’s PAC may ultimately provide access to permanent residence and naturalisation, acquisition of citizenship remains conditional, partly discretionary, and often delayed. Access to citizenship in both Australia and New Zealand depends upon permanent residence and minimum residence requirements: Australia generally requires four years of lawful residence, including at least one year as a permanent resident, while New Zealand generally requires five years of residence before citizenship by grant becomes available. New Zealand’s Minister of Internal Affairs retains a discretionary power to grant citizenship to a person in the territory who would otherwise be stateless, but this is a residual safety valve rather than a general entitlement.

For migrants relocating from climate-vulnerable states, these waiting periods may therefore overlap with a period in which their state of nationality becomes progressively less capable of providing protection, while access to an additional or complementary nationality remains unavailable. In this way, a gap between mobility and membership may emerge: migrants are permitted to relocate permanently but lack timely access to an additional or complementary nationality.

As with the risk of de jure statelessness discussed above, this issue was likewise reflected in the PMCS submission on the Falepili Union Treaty, which warned that Tuvaluans relocating to Australia could face conditions of de facto statelessness if climate change renders Tuvalu uninhabitable. Without timely access to Australian citizenship or any other additional or complementary nationality, affected individuals may retain a nationality in law while their state of origin’s capacity to provide protection continues to erode.

Overall, this analysis reinforces emerging scholarly and policy arguments that climate mobility arrangements should explicitly address questions of nationality. These include a forthcoming set of Global Recommendations on Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change, jointly developed by the PMCS and UNHCR, as well as recent findings by Govil, Gordon, and Yadav (and accompanying podcast). Addressing these questions requires both safeguards against loss of existing nationality and pathways to a new nationality or to an additional or complementary nationality, as appropriate, where necessary to reduce risks of statelessness.

Why Australia and New Zealand have legal responsibilities

Countries of origin generally bear primary responsibility for preventing arbitrary loss of nationality – that is, de jure statelessness – given their direct legal bond with the individual concerned. However, receiving states are not thereby absolved of responsibility for reducing risks of statelessness arising from climate-related mobility more broadly, which here arise primarily in the form of de facto statelessness.

First, as noted above, Australia and New Zealand are parties to the 1961 Convention, whose Final Act recommends that states ensure de facto stateless persons benefit, as far as possible, from the protections the Convention affords to those who are stateless de jure. Although non-binding, this recommendation supports a more proactive approach to nationality security in the context of climate-related mobility. It indicates that states party to the Convention should interpret their statelessness-related obligations expansively and in good faith (cf. Article 31(1)–(2) VCLT), to ensure that persons at risk of de facto statelessness are able, should they wish, to access an additional or complementary nationality. This is the exact dynamic identified above in relation to the PEV and PAC waiting periods. For Australia, this is reinforced by Article 32 of the 1954 Convention – to which Australia, but not New Zealand, is a party – requiring Contracting States to facilitate the naturalisation of stateless persons present in their territory. This obligation should be read alongside Paragraph 3 of the 1954 Convention's own Final Act, which was drafted specifically to address the position of de facto statelessness persons who technically still held a nationality but did not receive any of the benefits generally associated with nationality.

Second, obligations of international cooperation and assistance under climate treaties, when interpreted consistently with international human rights law, support legal duties by developed states to facilitate climate adaptation in vulnerable Pacific Island states, including through migration pathways. In practice, labour-based migration programmes such as Australia’s PEV and New Zealand’s PAC increasingly function as mechanisms supporting climate adaptation, even if they were not originally designed for that purpose.

However, if labour-based migration pathways operate as a climate adaptation measure, as the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility (PRFCM) itself acknowledges (paras 30–31), their design cannot overlook the nationality and protection consequences of the permanent relocation they enable, particularly the risk of de facto statelessness discussed above. Australia and New Zealand’s regional commitments reinforce this conclusion. As members of the Pacific Islands Forum, both states have committed, under the PRFCM, to regional solidarity, climate mobility cooperation, and protection against statelessness and respect for associated rights.

In more concrete terms, receiving states should seek to avoid creating the gap between mobility and membership, whereby migrants are able to relocate permanently but lack timely access to an additional or complementary nationality. This requires timely pathways to naturalisation, ideally in the form of facilitated dual nationality. This is permitted under Australian and New Zealand law, though its availability also depends on the nationality laws of the relevant Pacific state of origin (some of which permit dual citizenship, and some of which do not), so as to preserve individuals’ connection to their country of origin. Whatever form such reforms take, they should be developed through genuine consultation with affected Pacific Island communities and governments (cf. paras 11–12 of the PRFCM) to ensure their perspectives, priorities, and needs are reflected and addressed.

Conclusion

Climate mobility governance cannot stop at facilitating movement. Migration pathways that do so without meaningfully addressing nationality security risk reproducing new forms of insecurity and exclusion.

As labour-based migration pathways come to function as mechanisms of climate adaptation, questions of nationality and legal protection become unavoidable. Mobility without access to an additional or complementary nationality may leave migrants in conditions of prolonged vulnerability, undermining the practical enjoyment of fundamental rights even where formal nationality technically persists. In the context of climate change, migration governance, adaptation governance, and nationality protection cannot be treated as separate fields but must be approached in an integrated manner.

The author is grateful to Hélène Lambert and Aashish Yadav of the PMCS for their valuable feedback on an earlier draft, and in particular for the discussions that led to the concept and terminology of an "additional or complementary nationality" used throughout.

_{Image by Dim Gunger on Unsplash}