ABSTRACT
This paper addresses the legal dilemma surrounding climate-change refugees in light of the provisions of international law. The paper aims to explore and analyze the current international legal regime that consists of the rules of international refugee law and international human rights law, and examines the possibilities of climate-change refugees to receive protection under these legal frameworks. By adopting doctrinal and analytical methods, the paper starts with analyzing the definitional challenges surrounding the term "climate-change refugees", then it moves to explore the applicability of the 1951 Refugee Convention and relevant regional instruments to climate-change refugees, and then evaluates the role of international human rights law as a complementary protection framework. The paper concludes that while climate-change refugees are not legally recognized and protected by international refugee law at both international and regional levels, they also do not receive adequate protection under international human rights law. Finally, the paper calls on the international community and the UN to establish a new, comprehensive international legal framework, in a form of a new convention or an additional protocol that formally recognizes climate-change refugees as a protected category and provides them with clear, adequate, and effective protection.
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