Joint press release: UNHCR and Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at the University of Melbourne
GENEVA/MELBOURNE – The impacts of climate change worldwide are increasing risks of people becoming stateless and making those already without a nationality even more vulnerable. Yet solutions exist, according to the first-ever Global Recommendations on Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change, launched today by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at the University of Melbourne.
As the global climate continues to warm, nearly 90 per cent of the 4.5 million people known to be stateless today live in countries highly exposed to increasingly extreme weather and creeping environmental degradation, such as heatwaves, droughts, cyclones, floods and sea-level rise.
Because stateless people are not recognized as nationals by any country, they already face significant barriers in enjoying rights and accessing services such as going to school, seeing a doctor, getting a job or even getting married. Now climate change is reinforcing those barriers and making them even harder to overcome, deepening exclusion and insecurity.
At the same time, climate-related displacement and migration, the loss of identity documents during disasters, disruptions to civil registration systems, and gaps in nationality laws are exposing more people to the risk of becoming stateless. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre the past decade has seen an average of 27 million displacements brought on by weather-related events each year, and climate change is expected to drive that trend upwards.
“Climate change is an increasingly urgent protection crisis for people in vulnerable situations, including stateless people and those at risk of statelessness,” said Barham Salih, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “Nationality is far more than a legal status: it underpins a person’s identity, rights, and sense of belonging. These Global Recommendations provide practical guidance for governments to safeguard the right to nationality in the face of growing climate impacts and ensure that those already stateless are not left even further behind.”
The recommendations are grounded in international law and policy frameworks on the right to a nationality, the prevention and reduction of statelessness, climate change and human mobility. They are specifically guided by universally applicable principles in international law, including equality and non-discrimination, the right to life with dignity, the duty of international cooperation, and the right to participate. With the existential threats posed by sea-level rise currently on the global agenda, the recommendations are also timely in reflecting growing international recognition that the continuity of statehood should not be affected by sea-level rise and related loss of territory.
“Climate change is reshaping every aspect of human life, and we know it places stateless people, who are among the most vulnerable, at extreme risk. Millions more will be at risk of becoming stateless if they are forced to move to survive and lose access to civil registration or proof of nationality that protect them and their rights as citizens,” said Associate Professor Radha Govil, one of the lead authors of the Global Recommendations.
Among the key recommendations, States are encouraged to identify stateless people displaced in the context of climate change and include them in climate adaptation and response planning; strengthen birth registration and identity systems; establish procedures to identify and protect stateless persons in situations of climate-linked displacement; and ensure that all children impacted by climate change can acquire a nationality in order to prevent childhood statelessness.
Timely finance and support should be directed to this concrete area of preventive, impactful action. As climate change impacts intensify, UNHCR and the Peter McMullin Centre call on governments, regional organizations, civil society and development partners to implement the recommendations and ensure that nationality systems, climate policies and human mobility frameworks are inclusive, resilient and capable of protecting those most at risk.
Related links:
For more information:
- UNHCR: In Geneva, Carlotta Wolf, wolf@unhcr.org, +41 79 546 6707 and Eujin Byun, byun@unhcr.org, +41 79 747 8719
- Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness for interviews with lead author Associate Professor Radha Govil: In Melbourne, Karen Kissane, kkissane@unimelb.edu.au, +61 0448 286 084
