2023 Cascading Consequences of Sinking States 139 Although no island state has yet lost its entire territory, individual islands have been lost due to sea level rise, including islands in Micronesia and five of the Solomon Islands.3 4 This demonstrates that the loss of significant landmass due to rising seas is already occurring and highlights the real and present danger to low-lying island states. While the island territory of low-lying states is disappearing below the surface of the ocean, the fact of these states' existence is emerging into a legal void." The legal status of a state once its territory is fully submerged or its population has permanently departed is unclear for several reasons. First, while there is a traditional conception of what constitutes a state under international law, there is no legally binding definition. 36 Even under the traditional conception, it is unclear at which point a sinking state will cease to exist, as there has never been an extinction of a state due to physical causes. 37 If the principle of the continuity of states is favored over extinction through an expansion of the traditional notion of statehood, it is unclear how continuity will be preserved in the absence of territory or permanent population. With respect to the populations of the sinking states, they too slip into a legal void. If the states become completely uninhabitable, these populations have no right to legal residence elsewhere, as such a right does not exist in international law. The framework for protection under international refugee law is based on protection from persecution by government actors. As noted in Part III below, the risk to their lives has not been considered sufficiently imminent to be provided protection against refoulement back to their state of origin under current human rights law. If they become stateless upon the extinction of their state, their so-called "right to a nationality" has little meaning, as there are no corresponding binding obligations on states to grant them a nationality in these circumstances. There is a consensus that the phenomenon of sinking states presents novel questions in international law and that the framework to govern the issue either does not exist or is inappropriate. This is particularly true with respect to the legal status 34 Allen, supra note 27, at 2. 35 VON PAEPCKE, supra note 6, at 34 (noting that the question of whether an island that has lost all inhabitable territory can still be considered a state under international law "has not yet occurred in the history of states or international law, making the question a new one, and one urgently requiring an answer"). 36 Id. at 200; Int'l L. Comm'n, Study Group on Sea-Level Rise in Relation to International Law, U.N. Doc. A/CN.4/L.972, paras. 11, 39 (July 15, 2022) (recalling that "there was no generally accepted notion of a 'State"' and that "statehood was a complex issue deserving of caution, and . .. there was neither a generally accepted definition of a State, nor clearly defined criteria for the extinction of a State"); JAMES CRAWFORD, THE CREATION OF STATES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 37 (2007) (noting that "there has long been no generally accepted and satisfactory legal definition of statehood"); Karen Knop, Statehood: Territory, People, Government, in THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO INTERNATIONAL LAW 95, 95 (James Crawford & Martti Koskenniemi cds., 2015) (stating that "there is no generally accepted legal definition of statehood"); Tanvi Bhargava & Rebecca Cardoso, An Examination ofPalestine's Statehood Status Through the Lens of the ICC Pre-TrialChamber's Decision and Beyond, 54 INT'L L. & POL. 14, 16 (2021); Thomas D. Grant, Defining Statehood: The Montevideo Convention and Its Discontents, 37 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT'L L. 403, 408 (1999) (noting that "[i]n fact, international legal sources provide no satisfactory definition of 'state"' and that "codifying statehood has proven fraught with difficulty"). 37 Patricia Galvio Teles & Juan Josd Ruda Santolaria (Co-Chairs of the Study Group on Sea-Level Rise in Relation to International Law), Int'l Law Comm'n, 73d Sess., Second Issues Paperon Sea-Level Rise in Relation to International Law pt. IV, U.N. Doc. A/CN.4/752 (2022); JENNY GROTE STOUTENBURG, DISAPPEARING ISLAND STATES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 264 (2015) (stating that "[i]t thus seems to there exists no precedent in international law for a state without a territorial basis"); see also ILA LISBON REPORT, supra note 28, at 25 (describing the "diminishing aspects of statehood" due to sea level rise as an "unprecedented legal situation"). Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4321214