LEGAL AND PRACTICAL CHALLENGES IN RECOGNIZING CLIMATE REFUGEES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW

Climate change threatens fundamental human rights and causes cross-border displacement, particularly from low-lying island states. Yet, those affected remain unrecognized under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, resulting in legal uncertainty. This reflects a normative gap between the existing refugee protection framework and the evolving humanitarian realities of climate-induced displacement.

This research aims to analyze the normative implications of the absence of explicit legal recognition for climate refugees and to examine the legal and institutional challenges that hinder their protection within international law. It further seeks to evaluate how existing refugee law, human rights instruments, and state practices can be interpreted or developed to address climate-induced displacement.

This research employs a normative legal method by focusing on the analysis of the 1951 Refugee Convention as the primary international legal instrument. The study examines how the Convention’s limited scope creates implications for the legal recognition and protection of climate refugees, supported by relevant interpretations, scholarly works, and selected state practices.

The findings indicate that climate refugees can only be marginally accommodated under the 1951 Refugee Convention, whose persecution-based definition excludes environmental factors. Although limited progressive interpretation may allow certain cases, such recognition remains difficult in practice. This limitation sustains a normative gap and continued legal uncertainty in the protection of climate-induced displaced persons.

This research recommends strengthening international instruments, exploring the adoption of an additional protocol or new treaty, optimizing soft law mechanisms such as the Nansen Initiative, and encouraging regional frameworks particularly in climate-vulnerable regions to provide minimum guarantees of protection and to integrate climate refugees more firmly within the broader human rights regime