Addresses legal issues of rising seas endangering the habitability and existence of island nations in the Pacific and Indian oceans.

This book addresses legal issues of rising seas endangering the habitability and existence of island nations in the Pacific and Indian oceans.

Several low-lying atoll island states are at risk of losing their entire territory due to climate change-induced sea level rise. In Disappearing Island States in International Law, Jenny Grote Stoutenburg examines the most relevant and pressing international legal questions facing threatened island states: at which point would a sovereign state disappear? Who could make that determination? Which legal status would its citizens have? What would happen to the state’s maritime entitlements and its international rights and obligations? Does international law protect the international legal personality of states that lose their effective statehood for reasons beyond their control? In answering these questions, the book goes to the root of a fundamental problem of international law: the nature of statehood.

What happens under international law if a state perishes due to rising sea levels without a successor state being created? Will the state cease to exist? What would this mean for its population? Have international law and globalization progressed enough to protect the people thus affected, or does international law still depend on the territorial state when it comes to protecting entire populations? Exploring these issues, this book provides answers to these pressing questions. Focusing on small island states as actors in the international community, it evaluates the challenges that the state as a subject of international law faces in general from globalization and humanization, and what this means for small island states threatened by rising seas. Highlighting the experience of the indigenous peoples of small island states as collectives, and to the individuals living in these states, the book addresses fundamental questions of general state theory and international law, drawing on an extensive body of source material. As rising sea levels present an increasingly pressing threat to small island states, this book highlights the importance of international protection of the individual and the capacity of international organizations to act within existing international law. It identifies pressing problems where immediate action is required and argues that, in future, the responsibility for protecting individuals could shift to the international community, if a sinking island state can no longer protect its population on its own.

Master's Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: 1,2, University of Heidelberg (Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht), course: Master of International Law - Investment, Trade and Arbitration, language: English, abstract: What we only know from films and history, like the history of Atlantis from the ancient times, will become reality in the nearest future. In the South Pacific, one of the greatest inundations in the world's history threats including the loss of territory for various islands and, in the worst case, the loss of a whole Island State - of the low-lying coral atoll island State Kiribati. The question raises if there does not yet exist neither a migration plan nor an answer to the question, what happens with the State Kiribati when it will be inundated. The cause for that phenomenon is one of the very present problems in the world's discussion: the Climate Change. "Climate Change is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and climate-effected hazards have direct and irreversible consequences on people, property, business, financial systems, and state institutions worldwide." However, the phenomenon of the Climate Change is well-known nowadays, and material for discussion, the International Law offers only a few approaches and rarely solutions for the urgent threat. In this particular research project, it will be tried to resolve the question, how to define a State without territory if the territory will be inundated.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It provides policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of human-induced climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. This IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate is the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the observed and projected changes to the ocean and cryosphere and their associated impacts and risks, with a focus on resilience, risk management response options, and adaptation measures, considering both their potential and limitations. It brings together knowledge on physical and biogeochemical changes, the interplay with ecosystem changes, and the implications for human communities. It serves policymakers, decision makers, stakeholders, and all interested parties with unbiased, up-to-date, policy-relevant information. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.