Rising waters in the pacific islands and state sovereignty

Résumé du document

Ce devoir expose les enjeux de la montée des eaux dans l'Indo-Pacifique et en particulier pour Tuvalu. Rédigé en anglais.
This homework exposes the stakes of rising sea levels in the Indo-Pacific and in particular for Tuvalu. Written in English.

Extraits

[...] Hence, within few decades, these atoll islands seems doomed to lose their territories. For the first time in the human history, a State might disappeared – not because of war or annexion – because 1 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/GlobalWarming/page2.php 3 its territory has been annihilated. Classical definitions of a State consider that a territory is a constituent and necessary element of its existence and of its sovereignty. Yet, according to international law, these atoll states are today fully sovereign States since their independence in the late 1970s. [...]

[...] The official government policy is to stay on the island « come what may ». Apart this difference, both nation adopt the same attitude towards the rest of world, namely to raise awareness. In 2002, former Tuvaluan PM, Mr. Koloa Talake, together with I-Kiribati and Maldivian leaders, announce his will to suit Australia and the United States before the Court of Justice of the Hague for their massive greenhouse gases emissions.7 However, he was not 5 http://www.climate.gov.ki/2014/05/30/kiribati-buys-a-piece-of-fiji/ 6 https://samoaglobalnews.com/fiji-prime-minister-offers-home-to-people-of-tuvalu/ 7 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/will-tuvalu-disappear-beneath-the-sea-180940704/ 6 reelected and the lawsuit has never been filed. [...]

[...] Indeed, it appears that most of the drinking water in Tuvalu is collect from the rain and stock until consumption. It is predicted that such events will tend to repeat often in the future because greenhouses gases change weather patterns. The issue of drinking water is worsen by the ongoing soil salinisation (that is to say 3 Colette Mortreux, Jon Barnett, « Climate change, migration and adaptation in Funafuti, Tuvalu », Global Environmental Change, Volume 19, Issue Pages 105- Connell, J. [...]

[...] Despite islander authorities activity, it seems ineluctable that these islands became unliveable in the medium term. From then on, one has to think about the migration of the people, their future and their legal statute. Different possibilities have to be considered but – in the current world order – very few allow the perpetuation of the Marshallese, I-Kiribati and Tuvaluan States once their territories would have been flood. However, in the upcoming world were climate change will restructure human societies and territories, atoll states will not be the only States with their sovereignty and their existence threatened. [...]

[...] However, some authors as Pierre-Marie Dupuy15 consider that the incapacity of a state, as Tuvalu, to protect its people from climate hazards is a failure to its duty as a state. From this moment, a wide interpretation of the Geneva convention could lead to an extension of the definition of « refugee » to the persons concerned by this kind of failure. This vision is quite limited, especially from a temporal point of view. Indeed, even if one accept the point of view of Dupuy or if the definition is enhanced to climate refugees, it is difficult to determined if the migration is voluntary or forced. [...]