2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) which would provide for the possibility of individual complaint mechanisms, is limited in the Asia-Pacific region. 163 To sum up, while stateless persons will most certainly fall under the protection regimes of the ICCPR and the ICESCR as they are widely ratified and applicable to everyone, it remains questionable whether stateless persons might effectively enforce those human rights vis-à-vis their host states without the possibility of enjoying diplomatic protection. 3 The Refugee Convention The 1954 Convention is largely modelled on the 1951 Refugee Convention, 164 although in comparison to the Refugee Convention, it eg lacks a provision prohibiting refoulement as well as the penalisation of illegal entry. 165 Stateless persons might fall under the international refugee protection regime, if certain circumstances are met. 166 Article 1A(2) deals first with persons with a nationality. After a semicolon, art 1A(2) stipulates that a stateless person, as a person ‘not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence… is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it’, is — if fulfilling these criteria — to be considered as falling under the refugee definition. In the context of disappearing island states, it must be mentioned that the question of whether ‘climate refugees’ can be considered as refugees at all under art 1A(2) has already received wide attention in legal scholarship. 167 In general, it is recognised that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to prove that natural disasters give rise to a ‘well-founded fear’ of persecution. 168 While art 1A(2) stipulates the requirement of a well-founded fear of persecution for nationals of a state, it subsequently merely states that a stateless person must be ‘unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return’ to its country of habitual residence. If considerable emphasis is put on the ordinary meaning of art 1A(2), it 163 See ‘Status of Ratification’ (n 161). Please also note that the author will refrain from 164 165 166 167 168 elaborating on protection mechanisms through regional human rights instruments, such as the American Convention on Human Rights or the European Convention on Human Rights, as they would not be applicable in the relevant region. See Statelessness Convention Commentary (n 30) 1: ‘[I]n many instances the relevant articles of the Refugee Convention were taken over bodily by substituting the words “stateless person” for “refugee”’. See also Foster and Lambert (n 22) 566. Foster and Lambert (n 22) 566. 1951 Refugee Convention (n 139) art 1A(2). ibid. There are several problems to the application of art 1A(2) to ecological ‘refugees’, which cannot be dealt with in its entirety here. However, it should be stressed that persecution necessarily requires attribution of a violation of the person’s human rights to a state. In the case of disappearing island states, it will be difficult to determine one single state actor as responsible for the vanishing of a state’s territory (in the end, disappearing island states cannot be held responsible for rising sea levels on their own). The reasoning behind the Teitiota cases in New Zealand is similar: see Teitiota v The Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment [2013] NZHC 3125; Teitiota v The Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment [2014] NZCA 173 (‘Teitiota v The Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’); Jane McAdam, ‘The Emerging New Zealand Jurisprudence on Climate Change, Disasters and Displacement’ (2015) 3(1) Migration Studies 131, 133–34. See also Andreas Zimmermann and Claudia Mahler, ‘Article 1 A, para. 2’ in: Andreas Zimmermann (ed), The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2011) 281, 440 [572]; Jane McAdam, ‘Climate Change Displacement and International Law’, (Speech, Side Event to the High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges, 8 December 2010) (‘Climate Change Displacement and International Law’). 64