Sinking Small Island Nations: Calls for a Lifeboat

• Date: 01 July 2017

47 ELR 10576 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 7-2017

Sinking Small Island Nations:

Calls for a Lifeboat

by Pratheek Maddhi Reddy

Pratheek Maddhi Reddy is a third-year student, B.B.A. LL.B, at Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University.

In the South Pacic, midway between Hawaii and Aus-

tralia, lies the beautiful island nation of Tuvalu, home

to about 10,000 people. In about 40 years, Tuvalu will

be uninhabitable, and in 70 years, at best, it is likely to

be underwater. Due to rising sea levels caused by g lobal

warming, other low-lying island nations such as Kiribati,

Fiji, Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, Micronesia, and Nauru are

bound to suer the same fate eventually.

e low- elevat ion small isla nds, which contribute

negli gibly to glo bal warm ing, bear the most immediate

consequences . For instance, high sea levels have result ed

in di splacement of people in Kiribat i, Marsha ll Islands ,

Solomon Islands, and the Federated States of Microne -

sia. A de vast ating cyclone in 2008 destroyed agr iculture

and infras truc ture in Fiji and required the Fijian gov-

ernment to provide $1.7 m illion ( Fiji dollar s) wor th of

food r ations .1

is raises pressing ca lls for remedies for sinking small

island nations, in the forms of migration, compensation,

and reduction in greenhouse ga s (GHG) emissions. is

Comment discusses what these remedies mean to the small

island nations a nd their exigent nature, and proposes an

alternative mechanism to litigation.

I. Remedies

A. Migration

Environmenta l events such as cyclones, oods, deser ti-

cation, soil erosion, and changing coastlines will create

an exigency to migrate, which is the natura l adapta-

tion strategy of m ankind to environ mental volat ility.

Contrar y to general perception, more people are likely

to mig rate due to slow-onset processes of environmental

degradat ion than because of sudden-onset events such as

storms and cyclones.2

1. F  A O   U N, C-

 C  F S  P I C 6

(2008).

2. Philippe Boncour & Bruce Burson, Climate Change and Migration in the

South Pacic Region: Policy Perspectives, 5 P’ Q. 13 (2009).

ere is no veried estimate of projected population

ow due to rising sea levels, only guesstimates. Sixteen

percent of the land area of small island states is coastal

area with an elevation less than 10 meters, as opposed to

a global average of only 2%.3 Maldives is the lowest-lying

country, with more than 80% of land less than one meter

above sea level.4

With sea-level rise of a mere 0.5 to 2.0 meters, between

1.2 and 2.2 million people from the Caribbean and Indian

and Pacic Oceans could be displaced.5 e total popula-

tion in t he Pacic region is projected to reach nearly 18

million by mid-century, which could result in between

665,000 and 1,750,000 people migrating to other regions

of the world.6

Migration could be domestic as well as cross-border.

Within-countr y migration is quite common among

islands in the Pacic and Indian Oceans. For instance,

due to inundation from high water levels and storms,

2,600 Papua New Guineans migrated from low-lying

Carteret Islands to Bougainville.7 However, the current

rate of sea-level rise makes this a nd other such domestic

population movements in Micronesia and Vanuatu too

short-term a solution.

Hence, international or cross-border migration will

soon be a reality. International migration and relocation

require nuanced policy development a imed at coopera-

tion among cou ntries. ere is a need for a framework

that addres ses barriers such as resources, information,

and ot her social and personal factors in obtaining entry

into new countries. Simultaneously, adaptive strategie s in

terms of citizenship, housing, services, and work in t he

3. Duncan Roden, , P. I N

A’, Apr. 28, 2014, http://www.pina.com./?p=pacnews&m=read&o=11

36012921535dcfc8c1f6cf8029f2.

4. Gemima Harvey, Sinking States: Climate Change and the Pacic, D,

May 22, 2014, http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/sinking-states-climate-

change-and-the-pacic/.

5. I P  C C, C C

2014—I, A,  V: R A

1639 (Cambridge Univ. Press 2014).

6. John R. Campbell, Climate-Change Migration in the Pacic, 26 C.

P. 9 (2014).

7. F  A O, supra note 1, at 11.

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