William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review
Abstract
Following Hurricane María and subsequent disasters, Puerto Rico has experienced displacement, infrastructure collapse, and intensified economic exploitation through austerity policies championed as part of a disaster capitalist agenda. Climate change threatens self-determination globally, but its impacts are amplified by asymmetrical power relations. For Puerto Rico, climate vulnerability cannot be separated from colonial subordination. The Trump administration’s contemptuous response to María, PROMESA’s imposition of austerity, and the redirection of renewable energy funding toward fossil fuel infrastructure—each reveals how climate injustice compounds colonial injustice.
Drawing on international human rights law—particularly the rights to self-determination and to stay—we examine how Puerto Ricans assert sovereignty through grassroots initiatives despite their colonial status as a U.S. territory. We argue that Puerto Rican resistance against climate-related displacement and community-based energy production and distribution represent a reimagining of self-determination beyond traditional state-centric frameworks. While academic and political debates about statehood or independence remain largely abstract, communities on the ground are forging concrete paths toward autonomy by resisting dispossession and building self-reliant systems.
This Article contributes to growing scholarship on climate justice, energy democracy, and decolonization by centering Puerto Rican voices and practices. It demonstrates how the right to stay and self-determination can be operationalized through community control over essential resources, offering lessons for other climate-vulnerable communities navigating the intersection of environmental crisis and political marginalization.
Repository Citation
Camila Bustos and Mercè Martí Exposito, Climate Justice for Puerto Rico: The Right to Stay and Energy Sovereignty, 50 Wm. & Mary Env’t L. & Pol'y Rev. 521 (2026), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmelpr/vol50/iss3/6Included in
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