“Refugees without Recognition” refers to a growing category of people who are displaced due to climate change but remain invisible under international refugee laws. These individuals, often referred to as climate refugees, are forced to leave their homes because of environmental degradation, rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and other climate-related disasters. Yet, unlike those fleeing conflict or persecution, they are not recognized under the 1951 Refugee Convention. This lack of legal recognition leaves them vulnerable, often unable to access protection, aid, or resettlement opportunities, and exacerbates the precariousness of their situation. Climate-induced migration, while already a pressing issue, is expected to rise significantly in the coming decades, demanding a rethinking of global refugee frameworks to include environmental displacement.
Ecological inequality plays a central role in the plight of these unrecognized refugees. Those who contribute the least to climate change often bear the brunt of its impacts. Communities in developing nations, indigenous peoples, and those reliant on natural resources are disproportionately affected. This ecological inequality is further intensified by socioeconomic disparities, where poorer communities have fewer resources to adapt to or recover from environmental changes. As climate change accelerates, it deepens existing inequalities, with the world’s most vulnerable populations facing displacement without the safety nets that wealthier countries might have. The absence of recognition and legal protection for climate refugees reflects a broader global failure to address the deep-rooted inequalities that are fueling both environmental degradation and human suffering.
Gender inequality is another critical dimension of this issue. Women and girls, especially in marginalized and climate-vulnerable communities, are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change. When families are forced to migrate, women often bear the responsibility of securing food, water, and shelter, tasks that become increasingly difficult in degraded environments. Additionally, displacement can expose women to increased risks of gender-based violence, exploitation, and trafficking. The intersection of climate change and gender inequality means that women and girls face unique and heightened challenges, yet their voices and needs are often overlooked in policy discussions and interventions. Addressing the plight of climate refugees, therefore, requires not only legal recognition but also a commitment to gender-sensitive approaches that empower women and promote gender equity in climate adaptation and migration strategies.
Despite recognizing that “climate change is the defining crisis of our time,” the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) has not endorsed the concept of “climate refugees.” This lack of recognition, which extends to other international legal bodies as well as national governments, compounds the vulnerability of those displaced by climate change. In particular, it exacerbates ecological and gendered asymmetries that disproportionally affect already marginalized peoples. In essence, the current international legal regime undermines the recognition of climate refugees. Furthermore, its ecological and gender-blindness render it ill-equipped to mitigate the growing harm to marginalized communities. Collectively, these reproduce structures of inequity and violence.
Legal Regimes and their Limitations
The United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention) with its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (1967 Protocol) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) both prevent deporting individuals to locations where they would be in danger. However, they have been created in ways that prevent climate migrants from seeking protection.
A refugee, as defined by the Refugee Convention and edited by the 1967 Protocol, must face discrimination and persecution. However, nature acts “indiscriminately,” meaning climate migrants do not face discrimination. Additionally, New Zealand’s Immigration and Protection Tribunal’s (IPT) has clearly indicated only the migrant’s home government’s actions or inactions in response to natural disasters and climate change warrant consideration in determining if an individual faces persecution. Thus, the human causes of climate change and their disproportionate impacts on the Global South do not count as persecution. Thus, climate migrants generally are not protected by the Refugee Convention.
The Human Rights Committee (HRC) has asserted that the ICCPR’s requirement that states guarantee human rights for all in their territory implies a prohibition on extraditing individuals to places in which irreparable harms, such as a violation of the right to life, could occur. While this sounds positive, both New Zealand’s IPT and the HRC have shown that this does not cover climate migrants. The IPT found that the “(right to life) …does not guarantee human existence” but instead “protects against deprivation of life by state action or as a consequence of its omissions.” This means that merely deporting an individual back to a place where they would likely die is not necessarily a violation of the ICCPR. The HRC notes two requirements for protection through the ICCPR: the risk faced and the imminence of harm. Regarding the former, the Committee highlighted that “the risk must be personal, that it cannot derive merely from the general conditions in the receiving State…and that there is a high threshold for providing substantial grounds to establish that a real risk of irreparable harm exists.” Regarding the imminence of harm, the Committee found that 10-15 years does not count as imminent. This interpretation of imminence means that protection cannot be guaranteed until a country is uninhabitable.
Ecological and Gender Asymmetries
Marginalized communities suffer the greatest consequences of climate change. The IPCC’s fifth assessment report affirms that non-climatic factors contribute to varied risks associated with climate change, including geophysical, agro-ecological, and socio-economic risks. In particular, colonial legacies, conflict impacted areas, zones of economic repression, and fragile governance all negatively impact the relationship between ecology, gender, and climate change consequences. In other words, the lack of recognition of climate refugees elides the intersection of ecological and gendered asymmetries that disproportionally impact these communities. These asymmetries are especially pronounced among Asia-Pacific communities given that the region experienced roughly 225.3 million internal displacements between 2010-2021 which accounts for nearly 80% of the world’s climate-induced displacement. In the region, women in rural areas face heightened vulnerability due to their livelihoods being closely tied to local natural resources. Gender norms place the responsibility of securing essentials like water, food, and energy on women. However, their ability to perform these roles is challenged by climate change, thus resulting in ontological and physical insecurity.
For example, in the Marshall Islands, droughts have made it difficult for women to perform expected gendered tasks like cooking and doing laundry, leading to increased cases of domestic violence. In Chuuk, young girls responsible for drawing water from wells must walk further due to droughts, increasing the risk of assault. These issues are compounded by the reality that climate change is resulting in greater workloads due to lower crop yields stemming from reduced soil fertility and erosion. Furthermore, as displacement continues, women are unable to procure land in their relocation areas, thus increasing their exposure to violence. More extreme storms are also exacerbating ecological and gendered asymmetries in the region. In Vanuatu, the aftermath of Cyclone Vania and Atu in 2011 resulted in a 300% increase in gender-based violence towards women. This is compounded by the fact that women and children are 14 times more likely than men to die in disasters due to existing socio-economic structures. Men are also affected by ecological and gender asymmetries as they become unable to perform their expected roles. The emergence of disaster fathering (when mothers die, leaving fathers as single parents) has thrust men into roles, traditionally performed by women, for which they lack skill. This has resulted in increased consumption of alcohol to deal with disaster-induced stress, thus feeding into the vicious cycle of gender-based violence.
Looking Ahead and Bridging the Gap
Legal regimes have a history of adapting to changing international norms and conditions. However, in the context of climate change little to no progress has been made in recognizing climate refugees as a legal category in international law. More problematically, existing regimes appear ill-equipped to account for this category, indicating that they will either need significant revision or new regimes will need to be created. Given the acceleration of climate change and its projected socio-economic impacts, there is an urgent need to develop legal protections for climate refugees. Just as important, however, is the need to ensure that these legal protections account for intersections of ecology and gender asymmetries to avoid reproducing structures of inequality and violence. These protections must account for the reality that climate change will have varying effects depending on location. They must also recognize that gender needs to be applied as an organizing principle – not merely a variable to be measured but a structure of social relations that organizes and is also shaped by mobility patterns.
