Reconceptualizing the Climate 'Refugee' in International Law: Prioritising an Ecofeminist and Decolonial Paradigm

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My research project critically explores the gap in international law addressing the protection of climate'refugees', those forced to flee their homelands because of climate change impacts, with the aim ofoffering an alternative legal paradigm to grapple with future cross-border climate induced mobility. Since2008, an annual average of 22.5 million people has been forcibly displaced by climate related events(GRID 2018; UNHCR 2020). Without proper action, these figures are estimated to rise, with more than 1billion people potentially displaced internationally by 2050 due to climatic factors (IEP, 2020) and at least216 million people internally displaced across six regions (World Bank Groundswell Report, 2021).Despite this catastrophic scenario, States continue to miss international climate targets, as reiterated byCOP27. Moreover, while extensive literature acknowledges the urgency of finding legal responses(Atapattu, 2015; McAdam, 2012; Gemenne 2018), the current international legal framework remains illequippedto provide protection for climate 'refugees'. International legal institutions have failed toprovide a satisfactory response to date (UNHRC, Teitiota v. New Zealand, 2020) and national migrationpolicies continue to overlook climate change as a migration driver (McLeman, 2020).7 / 23My research argues that the heart of the problem is embedded in the way the climate-mobility nexus isunderstood, conceptualized and addressed under current international law. This reflects a 'coloniality ofknowledge' (Mignolo, 2000), as the epistemological foundations of migration and climate change legalstudies universalize a Eurocentric vision (Woldemariam, 2019; Collins; 2022, Sultana, 2022), andgenerate an epistemic hierarchy (Adelman, 2015).My approach builds on the need for 'new normative narratives based on more expansive sources ofknowledge'(McLeman, 2014), as concepts such as sovereignty, borders, post-facto orientation, binarythinking dividing migrant/refugees, human/nature, vulnerability/adaptation perpetuate a Westernparadigm that hinders a holistic response to climate displacement. Thus, my research responds to thenecessity to reconceptualize the climate change-human mobility nexus by adopting decolonialperspectives (Sultana, 2022), and drawing on ecofeminist theories (Fineman, 2014; Harris, 2015; Shiva2014) to provide an alternative legal paradigm, suitable to resolve future climate displacement.Therefore, my research questions are:What are the obstacles within the current international legal framework leaving climate 'refugees' in alegal impasse?How can prioritising ecofeminist and decolonial perspectives benefit a reconceptualization of the climatemobilitynexus?Which concepts from ecofeminism and decolonial perspectives can inform the epistemologicalfoundation of climate and refugee law? How can they be incorporated?I adopt a doctrinal research method with a particular emphasis on indigenous literature (Suliman, 2019;Whyte, 2019) and epistemologies of the South, as they seek to overcome ethical, economic andepistemological limits of Western knowledge in solving climate-related issues (Shiva, 2014). By valuingplural epistemologies to reframe the climate 'refugee', the originality of my research intends to challengethe dominant Eurocentric approach in analysing climate displacement and propose new ways forward totimely respond to the issue. My findings will be shared at international and regional (European) level, bycollaborating with the International Organization for Migration and EU Agency for Asylum to inform andinfluence the policy agenda.