Recorded on March 24, 2022.

Timothy A. Gelatt Dialogue on the Rule of Law in East Asia: Climate Change in Asia-Pacific

Panel 2: Rising Sea Levels in Asia

This event was on March 24, 2022.

This event was co-sponsored by the APEC Study Center at Columbia University.

Post-event summary

Rising sea levels due to climate change are already affecting the livelihoods of millions of persons in the Asia-Pacific region. Globally, more than 70 states – more than a third of the international community – expect to be or already are directly affected, while many other states experience indirect impacts. The UN’s International Law Commission (ILC) is studying whether and how international legal frameworks should be revised to protect the status and rights of affected states. Speakers were Nilüfer Oral and Patricia Galvão-Teles, two of the five co-chairs of the ILC study group on sea level rise in relation to international law. Bryce Rudyk, legal advisor to the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, moderated.

“One thing we know for a very long time now is that sea rise is happening. It will continue to happen even if we were to go to absolute zero emissions right now,” said Dr. Oral. She said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report released in August 2021 conservatively estimated the global average sea level rise has already reached 1.1 meters. “Certain areas like Asia will experience a higher level of sea level rise.” But she said that international law has gaps and ambiguities with respect to climate-related shifting baselines, redrawing the maritime boundaries of archipelago states, determining the status of islands when they lose their capacity to sustain human habitation, and the status of historical maritime boundary agreements and decisions in disputed cases. Her work focuses on identifying and addressing these gaps.

Dr. Galvão-Teles’s focus is the impact of sea level rise on statehood and protection of persons. Sea level rise and climate change can have adverse human rights impacts by causing displacement and migration due to loss of land and resources, she said. “What we have now is the absence of a dedicated legal framework to deal with this new phenomenon. … Although sometimes in public opinion and even in legal text there is reference to climate refugees or climate migrants, there isn’t a specific legal category to address this new phenomenon.” The ILC study group is working to identify applicable principles and norms from across human rights law, refugee law, migration law, disaster law, and climate change law and map existing obligations as well as state practice.

By Jessica Chin

Links:

The initial curriculum that was adopted by the ILC in 2018 to guide the work of the Study Group on Sea-level Rise in Relation to International Law, can be found here: https://legal.un.org/ilc/reports/2018/english/annex_B.pdf

The First Issues Paper by Bogdan Aurescu and Nilüfer Oral on the implications of sea-level rise on law of the sea was released in 2020. It can be found here: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N20/053/91/PDF/N2005391.pdf?OpenElement

About the speakers

José E. Alvarez

José E. Alvarez is the Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law at New York University School of Law and the faculty director of USALI. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institut de Droit International, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a former president of the American Society of International Law and previous co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of International Law. He teaches courses on international law, foreign investment, and international organizations. His more than 140 articles and book chapters and six books have made substantial scholarly contributions to a wide range of subjects within international law, including the law-generating rules of international organizations, the challenges facing international criminal tribunals, the boundaries between “public” and private,” and the legitimacy issues surrounding the international investment regime. His most recent books include The Impact of International Organizations on International Law (2017) (originating from his General Course offered at the Xiamen Academy of International Law), International Investment Law (2017), and The Boundaries of Investment Arbitration (2018).

Dr. Nilüfer Oral is director of the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore. She has been a member of the UN International Law Commission since 2017 and is co-chair of the ILC Study Group on sea level rise in relation to international law. She has advised the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Turkey on matters related to the law of the sea and climate change, served as a climate change negotiator between 2009 and 2016, and attended meetings held by the International Maritime Organization. She has also appeared before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. She has been a member of the Law Faculty at Istanbul Bilgi University since 1998. In addition, Dr. Oral has worked with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). She served on the IUCN Council, was co-chair of the Specialist Group on Oceans, Coasts and Coral Reefs, and is a member of the steering committee of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law. She is also a member of the governing board of the International Council on Environmental Law. Dr. Oral is on the editorial board of several international law journals, and has published numerous articles and edited several books.

Bryce Rudyk is director of International Environmental Law at the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy and Land Use Law and is an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law. He is the legal advisor to the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) at the United Nations. AOSIS, currently chaired by Antigua and Barbuda, is the negotiating group on climate change, sustainable development, and oceans issues for the 39 small island developing states (SIDS) around the world. He has been legal advisor since 2013 and participated in the negotiation of the Paris Climate Agreement, focusing on institutional and compliance issues and the incorporation of non-state actors into the international agreement. In addition, he directs the AOSIS Fellowship, a capacity building and policy empowerment program that brings early career SIDS diplomats to New York and UN Headquarters for a year of training and practical experience in their diplomatic missions. At NYU Law, he is director of the United Nations Diplomacy Clinic and teaches International Environmental Law, Global Environmental Governance, and UN Diplomacy. He has authored a number of articles and a book focusing on the governance of global environmental problems and the incentives and legal and institutional regimes created to manage these problems.

Patricia Galvão-Teles is professor of international law at the Autonomous University of Lisbon and senior legal consultant on international law at the Legal Department of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has been a member of the UN International Law Commission since 2017 and is co-chair of the ILC Study Group on sea level rise in relation to international law, focusing on the protection of persons including displacement and human rights issues. She is also a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Professor Galvão-Teles has published widely in different areas of international law. She is co-editor of the Portuguese Yearbook of International Law and a researcher at Observare (Research Centre for External Relations of the Autonomous University of Lisbon).