Climate Change Displacement and Migration in the Caribbean: Expanding Regional Legal Protection based on a Belizean Case Study

Climate change displacement represents a rapidly emerging problem for the international community. However, climate change-related movements remain an invisible phenomenon in legal and bureaucratic terms. There is a normative gap in the international legal protection regime in relation to cross-border displacement stemming from climate change-induced movements. This thesis will address the issue of climate change-induced migration for small island developing states (SIDS) in the Caribbean region within the context of international refugee law. This work acknowledges that international refugee law is inadequate to address the problem of climate change-induced migration and will thus evaluate alternative solutions to developing an adequate framework of protection for those displaced by climate change. In order to acquire significant, relevant and concrete data to review the existing reality in various SIDS in the Caribbean, this thesis will be making the case for the country of Belize, using it as a proxy. In Belize, five semi-structured interviews were conducted in Monkey River Village and San Pedro Town along with a series of field observations to gain a better understanding of the living conditions and the possible effects of climate change on the community member’s livelihoods. This data will generate a pathway of possible migration patterns in the area, which help generate migration legislation proposals in the Caribbean region. Possible legislation proposals for the region include an ad hoc humanitarian response policy and a planned migration response policy. This thesis will posit that an international accord should be prioritized by the international community, but that in the meantime regional legislative action would be the fastest and most efficient way to protect climate change migrants. The contribution of this research to the field of international law and climate change-induced migration is to reduce the normative gap in the international protection regime and find a speedier solution to displacement