Climate change refugees: Should applicants escaping the sudden, disastrous onset of climate change be accorded the same protection as those escaping persecution?

In the face of imminent mass displacements induced by climate change, the current legal regime for refugee protection fails to preserve the rights of individuals escaping climate disasters. This is due to the normative requirement that applicants seeking refugee status must be escaping ‘persecution’. Since those escaping climate change do not satisfy the traditional rubric of persecution, it has been argued that refugee status would not apply to applicants seeking protection from the effects of climate change. There is disagreement among academics on whether ‘CCRs’ (climate change refugees) should be accounted for in a separate category under Article 1A(2) of the Refugee Convention 1951. This paper will analyse whether disaster-motivated escape is adequately similar to ‘persecution’ so that victims of climate change-induced displacement may be considered refugees under the Convention. Moreover, it will assess whether international regimes, procedurally and substantively, provide redress for CCRs.