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Climate Refugees and the Global Common Concern: 'Rethinking Responsibility Sharing’ in International Law

Abstract

Climate change is a fervently sought manifestation that has disproportionately impacted human rights. Amongst galore impediments, climate change has left an indelible mark on human mobility. The climate change-induced migrants, compelled to move beyond the borders, are under a double-edged sword. The foremost starts with the ''recognitional void” under the Refugee Law Regime. At the outset of differential recognition, the scale of an apprehensive crisis is further questionable. However, acknowledging that no state can neither protect climate refugees nor address climate change alone, the need for responsibility sharing has been suggested as the sustainable contrivance in approaching the contemporary crisis.

At this outset, this doctrinal paper explores the climate refugee crisis under the broad ambit of 'global common concern' in International Law, gaging from the lessons from Climate Change Laws. On studying the evolution of the instruments that have echoed the Principle of 'responsibility sharing' as the alternative mitigating tool of this contemporary crisis, the paper studies its connections with the broader typologies of migration. Through the critical lens, the Principle of 'Responsibility Sharing' is assessed in its capacity to address the unique challenges posed by climate refugees. The analysis reflects environmental justice, racial and colonial legacies while incorporating the legal gaps in the 'responsibility sharing' framework. In the conflicting consequential predictive analysis, the paper revisits the principle of 'Responsibility Sharing' of climate refugees to examine whether the countries that are minor contributors to carbon footprints and on the brink of being submerged due to the atrocities of climate change have the similar responsibilities as opposed to the highest contributors, or the responsibility sharing is metamorphosed into responsibility shifting?

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