Climate Change and Statelessness: Informing a Response to Statelessness due to Sea Level Rise in Dialogue with Hannah Arendt

Abstract

In this thesis, I aim to inform a response to the harms of statelessness facing those who live in coral atoll states by using and extending Arendt’s analysis of statelessness. I examine the general harms of statelessness as identified by Arendt, and extend her analysis in light of the specific conditions facing those at risk of statelessness due to sea level rise to identify specific harms arising in this context. Though I go beyond Arendt’s analysis, I demonstrate that my reconstruction is supported her analysis. I then demonstrate that self-determination, rather than the provision of citizenship or the substantive right to asylum, is the appropriate way to protect the ‘right to have rights’ in this context. Finally, I examine two proposals for actualising self-determination, demonstrating that they stress different aspects of it, and that they face unique challenges. I do not claim that one proposal will be more successful than another; rather it is up to self-determining populations to determine the most appropriate responses for their own communities, according to the aspects of self-determination that they themselves value most.