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UC Law Environmental Journal

Abstract

Climate change-induced displacement is not only a possibility but a present reality. This problem affects marginalized communities everywhere, but Indigenous peoples, particularly those in disappearing States, are especially climate-vulnerable and often at risk of losing their ancestral lands forever due to climate change. Despite the inevitability and urgency of this issue, there are currently no legal frameworks specifically designed to address the issue of Indigenous sovereignty amidst climate-change induced displacement. Thus, this paper seeks to identify and examine the legal frameworks that can be used and extended to protect Indigenous sovereignty when environmental displacement occurs. The only protections Indigenous peoples can currently utilize flow from consultation and participatory rights, such as the duty to consult, and the right to free, prior, and informed consent under ILO Convention 169 and the UNDRIP, respectively. On the other hand, for internally displaced peoples, the relevant legal frameworks are the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the Kampala Convention, which are not designed to address environmental displacement either. This Article critiques the existing international legal frameworks for their roots in colonialism and argues for the need to overhaul the entire international system in the face of complex, global problems like climate change, environmental displacement, and Indigenous sovereignty rights. This Article argues that these challenges can be addressed by having Indigenous peoples be the key decision-makers of their own destinies, rather than mere procedural consultants, particularly in future negotiations about relocation and resettlement from their ancestral lands due to climate change.

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