The Protection of Human Rights in the Context of Climate Change : Non-refoulement Obligations under Article 3 ECHR to Protect Environmental Migrants?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes in its Fifth Assessment Report from 2014 that states are the main cause of anthropogenic gas emissions. Furthermore, scientists predict that displacement across border for reasons of climate change will increase rapidly in the coming decades. The discourse of this thesis is whether contracting states to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) have non-refoulement obligations not to forcibly return an individual to another state where slow onset events of climate change exists. The author's foremost focus is to examine if deprivation of socio-economic rights in the receiving state as a result of slow onset events of climate change can constitute inhuman or degrading treatment violating Article 3 ECHR. While difficulties persist, this thesis displays that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) could possible find non-refoulement obligations upon the contracting state not to remove an environmental migrant to another state where he or she risks being exposed to ill-treatment because of the adverse effects of climate change. This thesis also addresses alternative solutions of the existing problems of environmental migrants in international law. Yet, it is difficult to establish international legally binding instruments to protect environmental migrants or to include environmental migrants under Article 3 ECHR due to lack of political will and the horizontal legal system existing in international law.