LEGAL committee leans toward term ‘climate displaced people’
Written by Vicent Llorca Mascarell, Journalist, LIMUN
In the middle of the international turmoil seen nowadays, a danger stalks. Climate change threatens many countries and peoples. Sea levels rise, the weather tends to have more extreme conditions, which inflict damages on crops, health, and liveability as a whole. Consequently, many people are getting displaced.
The LEGAL Committee is trying to address this issue. One of their points of conflict is coming up with an agreed upon term for defining these displaced peoples. Apparently, despite initial friction, talks are leaning towards the ‘climate displaced people’ term, according to some sources. This has many repercussions on the legal sphere that we may consider in another publication.
Anyway, the committee began by elaborating on three working papers, but currently they have merged two of them, rendering the initial triad into a pair of documents. The first one is more regional and it is sponsored by the Philippines, New Zealand and South Sudan, regions which suffer the most from climate change, extreme weather events (especially droughts, leading to crop failure) and the rising sea levels. Nonetheless some other countries are ‘working also in the project, but are not visible faces’, for example, the United Kingdom, Brazil or Australia.
The second working paper is ‘more ambitious’ according to a source not working in this document; ‘we prefer a more regional scope’, they argue. The document is sponsored by Fiji, Nigeria and, interestingly enough, Brazil, who is also a signatory in the first working paper. They reference a discussion on the extension of Article 6 of the International Convention of Civil Rights by ‘adding a new legal status of persons displaced by serious climate-related harm’. They suggest the creation of a new chamber, the ‘International Climate Accountability Chamber (ICAC)’, which provides the main point of succession with the other bloc. They also recognise the ‘LAVA Relocation Treaty as a legal framework’ when dealing with ‘climate displaced people.’
Furthermore, the General Assembly is given advice, specifically to ‘discuss an extension of Art. 6 of the International Convention of Civil Rights’. This Convention is part of the United Nations Human Rights Office, and is registered as a Human Rights Instrument. Said Article opens by stating that: ‘Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one should be arbitrarily deprived of his life’, and delves into the practice of the death penalty.
Despite the discrepancies, a delegate warns us that there is an ‘arm wrestle’ between the two parts, but ‘only one resolution’ can actually be passed.
