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Mayer, Benoît --- "Climate change, migration and the law of state responsibility" [2017] ELECD 1353; in Mayer, Benoît; Crépeau, François (eds), "Research Handbook on Climate Change, Migration and the Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 238

Book Title: Research Handbook on Climate Change, Migration and the Law

Editor(s): Mayer, Benoît; Crépeau, François

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785366581

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Climate change, migration and the law of state responsibility

Author(s): Mayer, Benoît

Number of pages: 24

Abstract/Description:

Under the international law of State responsibility, a State must pay reparation for the injury caused to other States by its internationally wrongful acts. This chapter questions whether this rule could provide grounds for normative arguments relating to the treatment of migrants in the context of climate change. It argues that it could not. Certainly, States bear some responsibilities, not just when and inasmuch as they fail to comply with their obligations under specific treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol, but also when they infringe norms of general international law such as the no-harm principle. States responsible for a breach of a primary international obligation bear a secondary obligation to make reparation, in particular by compensating the injured State(s). This, however, does not justify the imposition of specific obligations on the developing States affected by climate change to adopt particular policies on ‘climate migration’ beyond international human rights law. Measures allowing for the resettlement of foreign citizens as a form of reparation, on the other hand, appear unlikely to provide an effective protection to the human rights of the individuals concerned.