Previous instances
In 2015, the applicant’s (Ioane Teitiota) application for asylum to New Zealand was denied by New Zealand’s Immigration and Protection Tribunal, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court.
For further context, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that the state of Kiribati is likely to no longer exist should global temperatures and sea levels continue to rise.
The applicant and his family were deported to Kiribati. The primary contention from the applicant was that, in deporting him, the Government of New Zealand had violated his right to life as his home country was rendered uninhabitable due to rising sea levels and other consequences of climate change.
Summary of holding
The Court held that the deportation of the applicant itself was not unlawful, because objectively the applicant did not face a real risk of being persecuted if returned to his home country. There was no evidence presented by the applicant that supported his contention that he would have no access to land, or that he would be unable to grow food or obtain drinkable water, or overall, that Art. 6 of the ICCPR would be violated. The Committee took note of all considerations, including increased violence over land, overpopulation, intense flooding, and depletion in resources in Kiribati (para. 9.6 – 9.12).
Given the Committee’s finding, the applicant could not be regarded as a ‘refugee’ within the definition of the 1951 Refugee Convention (para. 2.8). Further, there was no evidence to substantiate the claim that the applicant would arbitrarily be deprived of his right to life should he return to his home country (para. 2.9).
Key points (made throughout in obiter)
- The Tribunal considered that –
“…while in many cases the effects of environmental change and natural disasters will not bring affected persons within the scope of the Refugee Convention, no hard and fast rules or presumptions of non-applicability exist. Care must be taken to examine the particular features of the case” (para 2.8)
- The Right to Life. The Committee reaffirmed that the right to life is to be interpreted broadly, in line with the considerations extrapolated upon in the Committee’s General Comment No. 6 (1982).
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