Deslocados ambientais e o direito internacional: o princípio “non-refoulement” e o seu papel na proteção jurídica das migrações ambientalmente forçadas

Abstract

Climate change-related displacements are one of the most serious consequences caused by this phenomenon and could displace between 25 million and 1 billion people in the next four decades. Under the scope of International Law, there is a legal gap that does not assign any specific protection to those individuals. Due to this lack of mechanisms to provide legal protection, this study demonstrates how the principle of "non-refoulement" is used to ensure the safeguarding of these individuals within the International Refugee Regime and the International Human Rights Regime. The main objective is to understand how this customary norm can be used and what its limitations are within each Regime. The study uses as an example the Teitiota case, considered one of the first "environmental refugees", Ioane Teitiota claimed that this principle was violated by the New Zealand government after sending him back to Kiribati. It is concluded that the application of this mechanism can offer protection and ensure the safeguarding of the fundamental rights of those environmentally displaced. Its adoption can be beneficial, within the scope of the International Regimes, when it can be proven that there has been a violation of human rights in the country of origin, or when the individual's situation is compatible with the framework foreseen in the 1951 Convention and its Additional Protocol. The completion of the present study is based on the fact that the climate crisis issue causes several damages and affects all societies, and this situation of forced displacement tends to worsen over the years. Hence, in case there is no immediate action from the International System to promote the mitigation of the risks associated with the reasons causing global warming, nor to guarantee the protection of these climate change-related displacements, the situation may involve a humanitarian crisis.