William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review
Abstract
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a unique set of states that are disproportionately impacted by climate change impacts and are highly vulnerable to economic, cultural, and environmental harms. While many are islands, SIDS also include non-island states populated with predominately coastal communities. The United Nations recognizes 39 sovereign states and 18 associate members as SIDS. SIDS account for over 1,000 islands across the globe, but the total population across them amounts to 65 million people, less than one percent of the global population. SIDS contribute less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the main cause of modern-day climate change, yet SIDS are disproportionately burdened by climate change impacts.
SIDS require more stringent legal protections to protect underserved communities at the forefront of the climate crisis. Protections must extend beyond longstanding international human rights mechanisms to address climate migration and loss of lands attributed to climate change. International law should embrace ocean equity mechanisms to address the unique threats and harms to SIDS. By shaping the law around ocean equity concepts, displaced communities can secure an active role in developing the ocean governance that directly affects them most, while placing proper accountability on the global North for its outsized contributions to global climate change, and many of the corresponding climate change impacts facing SIDS.
Part I of this Article discusses the vulnerabilities affecting SIDS generally and addresses four SIDS as case studies of displacement threats and adaptation strategies. Part II introduces the current international climate change governance regime and discusses the strengths and limitations of applying human rights principles to communities affected by climate displacement. Part III reviews key ocean equity principles, including the relevant law and the importance of inclusion of Indigenous communities in both policy and decision-making in ocean conservation in the face of climate change impacts. Part IV analyzes climate change mitigation and displacement case law from each of the four case studies and how the three major climate advisory opinions can inform how to center equity in future international climate governance. Part V proposes how the law can be utilized to better protect SIDS on the forefront of escalating climate change harms. Existing international law and potential new legal tools must be interpreted and applied through a lens of “climate displacement equity,” which combines ocean and equity and climate justice principles to directly protect coastal communities most threatened by the climate crisis.
This abstract was taken from the author's introduction.