THE OCEAN CAN TAKE THEIR LAND. IT CAN’T TAKE THEIR COUNTRY.
The first global political declaration on sea-level rise says an island state does not stop being a country because rising water makes its land uninhabitable.
On September 24, UN member states adopted by consensus the first global political declaration centered on sea-level rise. It affirms continuity of statehood, sovereignty and stable maritime zones despite physical changes caused by rising seas.
WHAT HAPPENED
Small island states have spent years pressing the world to answer an unprecedented legal question: if climate change swallows a country’s habitable land, does the country disappear too? The new declaration says no. It recognizes that statehood and sovereignty continue and that maritime boundaries already deposited with the UN should remain stable. The declaration is political, not a binding treaty.
WHY THIS IS HOPESLOP
The climate threat is not romanticized. The hopeful outcome is that the world agreed an island nation is more than dry land and its people do not become stateless because the ocean moved.
ORIGINAL SOURCEAlliance of Small Island States / United NationsRead the original report
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