AHMR African Human Mobilty Review - Volume 8 No 3, SEP-DEC 2022 Another argument against the use of the legal framework of statelessness in the scenario of the sinking state is that it is not well suited to the sinking state scenario. Assuming that these states would lose their statehood on inundation, rendering their population stateless, this is unlikely to occur contemporaneously with the actual displacement of these persons. The land is likely to become unhabitable long before the territory is completely inundated. The population will therefore be forced to migrate but will not yet be stateless as the state continues to exist. A good example is Bangladesh; although the country is not a sinking island state, it is losing significant land on its shoreline due to its high population density and there is nowhere for displaced persons to move internally. Therefore, persons displaced from Bangladesh are a large asylum-seeking population in the Southern African region. There have been Bangladesh nationals who come to South Africa and other countries in the Southern African region intending to seek asylum and settle permanently.51 This is a problem that may not be ignored. There is thus confusion about whether persons displaced in these scenarios would be stateless or not, and whether or not the international statelessness regime is appropriate to protect them. As Southern Africa is likely to be affected by this problem in future, states in the region will need to rely on their own legal regimes to provide protections to such persons. (b) High-risk zones The impacts of climate change can result in land being unsafe for human habitation.52 There may, therefore, be instances where the government of a state officially designates a certain area of that state as high-risk and unsuitable for human habitation.53 Of course, generally in this scenario, the relevant government would be responsible for relocating the affected population.54 Affected persons are, therefore, likely to be displaced internally and to be protected primarily by the state’s legal system. However, the situation is far less certain where members of the affected population are already at risk of statelessness. For example, there may be members of the affected population who migrated from another state but do not have an asylum-seeker permit or refugeestatus documentation. There may also be persons who were given asylum-seeker or refugee status but who have lost their documentation. Persons located in high-risk areas who do not have identity or registration documents may be unable to prove their nationality. While this does not render such persons automatically stateless, it does increase their risk of statelessness. Should this happen in South Africa, for The Government of South Africa ‘High Court dismisses case of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants against Home Affairs’ available at https://www.gov.za/high-court-dismisses-case-bangladeshi-illegal-immigrants-against-home-affairs, accessed on 20 April 2022. 52 Walter Kälin op cit note 39 at 85 and 91. 53 Walter Kälin op cit note 39 at 91. 54 See World Bank ‘Operational policy 4.12: Involuntary resettlement’ World Bank Operational Manual (Washington DC, World Bank, 2001); Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ‘Guidelines on aid and environment: No 3: Guidelines for aid agencies on involuntary displacement and resettlement in development projects (Paris, OECD, 1992). 51 102