Sea Level Rise and Climate Statelessness under the 1951 Convention, an outcome in line with most academic analyses of the relevance of the 1951 Convention for EDPs.6 Thus, in the absence of pre-emptive solutions to relocation, there is a risk that EDPs from LLISs would fall through the net of international protection, outside the scope of the international instruments that have hitherto protected those on the move.7 This does not mean that refugee law bears no relevance to the migration of EDPs, as the principle of non-refoulement was recently found by the United Nations Human Rights Committee to (eventually) provide protection against forced return.8 While undoubtedly a positive development, the principle of nonrefoulement is narrow in scope and fails to offer both legal status and substantive protection to EDPs.9 However, a comparatively lesser-known instrument might bear some relevance for EDPs from LLISs: the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (‘1954 Convention’).10 This article will attempt to assess the relevance of the law on statelessness for the protection of cross-border, EDPs from LLIS within a hypothetical worst-case scenario. By the term ‘worst-case scenario’, this article aims to describe a future timeline within which pre-emptive solutions cannot be implemented and palliative solutions thus need to rely on the currently existent and applicable legal framework with minimal reliance on proactive action by other members of the international community. Statelessness in the context of climate change could take different forms, ranging from the accrued vulnerability of already stateless populations, such as the Rohingyas, to the very literal possibility of those who may lose their country of nationality. The present analysis is concerned with the latter, based on the premise that the nationals of a state become stateless upon the extinction of their former state’s statehood. In the context of LLISs, this can be translated as the 6 7 8 9 10 Teitiota v Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment [2015] NZSC 107. For a discussion of the lacunae in the 1951 Convention (n 5) with regards to EDPs from LLISs, see Jane McAdam, Climate Change, Forced Migration, and International Law (Oxford University Press 2012) 42–48 (‘Forced Migration’). See generally, António Guterres, ‘Nansen Conference on Climate Change and Displacement; Statement by António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (Speech, UNHCR 6 June 2011) <https://www.unhcr.org/4def7ffb9.html>; Jenny G Stoutenburg, Disappearing Island States in International Law (Brill 2015) 402. This is why the use of terms such as ‘climate refugees’ is problematic, as it implies the existence of protection where there is little to none available, notwithstanding specific states broadening their domestic implementation of international refugee law to include EDPs. This also applies to a number of domestic frameworks that explicitly or practically excluded persons displaced by natural disasters from their protection frameworks. See, eg, ‘Consolidated Grounds in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act: Persons in Need of Protection — Risk to Life or Risk of Cruel and Unusual Treatment or Punishment’, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Web Page, 15 May 2002) s 3.1.4 <https://irb.gc.ca/en/legal-policy/legal-concepts/Pages/ProtectLifVie.aspx#s3>; Camilla Schloss, ‘Climate Migrants — How German Courts Take the Environment into Account When Considering Non-Refoulement’, Völkerrechtsblog (Blog Post, 3 March 2021) <https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/climate-migrants/>. Other states such as Finland and Sweden suspended or removed domestic legal provisions that could have been used by EDPs. See Jane McAdam, ‘Protecting People Displaced by the Impacts of Climate Change: The UN Human Rights Committee and the Principle of Non-Refoulement’ (2020) 114(4) American Journal of International Law 708, 723. Human Rights Committee, Views: Communication No. 2728/2016, 127th sess, UN Doc CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016 (24 October 2019) 12 [9.11] (‘Teitiota v New Zealand’). For a detailed interpretation of the Human Rights Committee’s decision, see McAdam, ‘NonRefoulement’ (n 7). Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, opened for signature 28 September 1954, 360 UNTS 117 (entered into force 6 June 1960) (‘1954 Convention’). 289