JEAIL > Volume 18(1); 2025 > Issue Focus
Research Paper
Published online: May 30, 2025
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2025.18.1.02

Forging a Legal Shield for Climate Refugees: Adopting a Comprehensive International Legal Framework to Protect Their Rights

Tianbao Qin & Elias Kujo McDave & Donatus Dunee & Palmer Prince Dagadu
Wuhan University School of Law
Luojiashan Street, Wuhan, Hubei, China, 430072.
Correspondence to: palmerdag@whu.edu.cn

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Abstract
The escalating impacts of climate change are compelling individuals to flee their homes, giving rise to a new category of refugees known as climate refugees. Despite clear evidence linking climate change to forced migration, the protection of these refugees’ human rights remains unaddressed by any existing international legal framework. This paper explores the necessity of embracing a new comprehensive international legal framework tailored to climate refugees. It advocates for a legal framework that addresses prevention and remedies the issues faced by climate refugees and ensures their human rights are safeguarded. We also argued that the Comprehensive International Legal Framework should have a collective obligation to safeguard the rights of climate refugees on the global scale and to provide a solution that integrates the various rules of law, meets humanitarian needs, and is tailored to the protection of the rights of climate refugees.

Keywords : Climate Change, Climate Refugees, Human Rights, UNFCCC, UNHCR, 1951 Refugee Convention, Comprehensive International Legal Framework

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