tilburg law review 19 (2014) 20-25 brill.com/tilr Sinking into Statelessness Heather Alexander Refugee lawyer; former Associate Protection Officer, UNHCR heather.jean.alexander@gmail.com Jonathan Simon Postdoctoral Research Fellow, philosophy; Tulane University New Orleans, LA jonathana.simon@gmail.com Abstract If rising seas render small islands uninhabitable, will displaced islanders become stateless? The modern intellectual and legal tradition tells us that states must have defined, habitable territory. If so, small islands will cease to be states, and their inhabitants will accordingly become stateless. Against this, leading scholars have recently argued that the principle of presumption of continuity of state existence implies that island states continue to be states even after becoming uninhabitable. We argue to the contrary: the principle of presumption of continuity of state existence implies no such thing. If nothing is done to prevent the loss of their territory, small islands will lose their statehood, making displaced islanders stateless. Keywords statehood – statelessness – nationality – climate change – small island states – sinking states – continuity of statehood – state recognition – territory The world’s sea levels are rising. By some projections, seas are rising so fast that within a hundred years, low lying island states such as Kiribati and the Maldives will become uninhabitable.1 Will these island nations cease to exist as such? If so, will their people count as stateless under international law? 1 M. L. Parry, O. F. Canziani, J. P. Palutikof, P. J. van der Linden, and C. E. Hanson (eds), Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/22112596-01902003