Are environmental refugees recognised by international law?
Despite growing pressure to create an international legal framework for recognising, protecting and resettling environmental refugees, no such instrument exists. What’s more, experts say little progress has been made towards resolving their unclear status. According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the term “refugee” applies to any person who “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country”. Elizabeth Ferris, co-director of the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, argued in a December 2007 lecture that the use of the term “environmental refugee” was confusing and inaccurate because people forced to flee their countries due to natural disasters weren’t entitled to international protection and assistance under refugee law. The term
