2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) More specifically, the international legal framework is faced with the challenge of addressing several effects of climate change, one of the most drastic being the case of disappearing island states. 10 By all estimates, the territory of several lowlying island states — such as the Maldives or Tuvalu — will become submerged due to sea level rise in the foreseeable future. 11 Hence, the submergence of whole nations might result in rising numbers of stateless people by the end of the 21st century. The issue of disappearing island states has also not evaded the attention of the International Law Association (‘ILA’), a private organisation, which has as its objective ‘the study, clarification and development of international law’. 12 It has established the ILA Committee on International Law and Sea Level Rise (‘ILA Sea Level Rise Committee’), which aimed to consider in its final report in 2018 inter alia whether questions such as the continuing statehood of disappearing island states as well as its ‘human dimension’ ‘need to be addressed by treaty law or whether customary international law and “softer” methods of norm creation will be sufficiently flexible to address these challenges’. 13 This contribution will focus on a selected number of issues concerning the current status of international law with regard to disappearing island states. The core question of this paper is whether the de lege lata regime is sufficient to counter the challenge of effective human rights protection of displaced island populations. 14 Disappearing island states are without precedent in international law. For the purpose of this article, it will thus be assumed that the whole territory of island states will be submerged under the sea. The article will, in Part II, start by illustrating several pertinent problems with regard to the definition of statelessness. The importance of nationality for the enjoyment of human rights — especially with regard to their effective enforcement — will be underlined in Part III. Part IV will analyse whether there exists a so-called right to nationality in international law, which could serve as a possible solution to the problem of statelessness. Part V is divided into two parts: Part V(A) will address the question whether island states may still be considered ‘states’ once they are submerged. The answer to this question is particularly important in order to determine whether displaced islanders may enjoy protection under the Conventions on Statelessness. Part V(B) will conclude by demonstrating that existing international law instruments might not be effective enough to protect the human rights of displaced populations of disappearing island states. 10 11 12 13 14 See generally Leonard A Nurse et al, ‘Small islands’ in V R Barros et al (eds), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability — Part B: Regional Aspects (Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2014) 1613–54. Note one of the most recent scientific articles on the issue of accelerated sea level rise, Robert S Nerem et al ‘Climate-Change — Driven Accelerated SeaLevel Rise Detected in the Altimeter Era’ (2018) 115(9) PNAS 2022, 2022–25. Other low-lying island states that will most probably disappear are Tuvalu, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru etc. See Jenny Grote Stoutenburg, Disappearing Island States in International Law (Brill Nijhoff 2015) 40; Alister Doyle, ‘Rising Seas Scariest Climate Impact: Nauru’s Moses’ (Reuters 26 April 2011) <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-nauruidUSTRE73P6TU20110426>. International Law Association, ‘About Us’ <http://www.ila-hq.org/index.php/aboutus/aboutus2>. International Law Association Committee on International Law and Sea Level Rise, The Johannesburg Conference: Final Report (Report, 2016) 11. While the commonly used Latin expression de lege lata means ‘of the current/existing law’, de lege ferenda expresses ‘new law’ or ‘what the law should be’. Both expressions are of particular importance to this contribution, since the current law will be assessed and measured against the need of a possible ‘future law’ for the protection of displaced islanders due to disappearing island states. 44