Environmental Migrants and International Law

Abstract

The paper examines the current state of international law in relation to the problem of environmental migrants. The existing legal categories of political refugees and economic migrants are not well suited to find the right legal response to the migrants fleeing from environmental degradation. The existing international law agreements fail to provide clear guidance to address the current problem of the displaced people who flee from ecological catastrophes. The lack of legal clarity can be rectified by adopting the view of the natural law tradition as reflected in major world religious traditions. The principles of natural law provide clear, stable, and authoritative moral principles to be applied to solve complex problems when the legitimate interests of the environmental refugees collide with the legitimate interests of the states of asylum. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the moral principles as articulated in the world religions can assist the decision makers to find the right balance between the interests of local population and the interests of the environmental migrants.