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Democracies in the Climate Crisis: Redefining Citizenship and Statehood in Sinking States

Project description

Redefining statehood and citizenship for a climate-changed world

What happens to a country when it disappears beneath the sea? As climate change threatens to submerge entire nations like Tuvalu, the world faces uncharted legal and human dilemmas. Today’s laws still tie statehood to physical land – but what if the land vanishes? Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the RESIST project will answer this question. Starting with Tuvalu’s groundbreaking 2023 constitutional amendment, which redefines statehood without territory, RESIST explores how citizenship, statehood, and legal rights must evolve in the face of rising seas. By analysing legal gaps, conducting fieldwork, and gathering global expertise, the project aims to reshape international norms. Its overarching goal is to protect the rights and identities of climate-affected communities.

Objective

RESIST will be the first research to redefine our current legal categories of citizenship and statehood in the extreme case of sea level rise submerging the whole territory of a state. The international community has no experience in managing the disappearance of whole territorial states as a result of environmental disruptions, nor has it designed international legal norms to account for such an eventuality. In this view, RESIST first examines a real-world case, namely the unique case study of Tuvalu, where recent constitutional amendments (2023) have innovated the notion of statehood in light of the impacts of climate change or other causes resulting in loss to its physical territory. More specifically, Tuvalu is the first State to introduce a novel definition of statehood in its Constitution that does not require physical territory as a necessary condition for being recognized as an independent state. Second, it shows the shortcomings of these current legal categories in tackling present and future challenges deriving from the climate crisis and climate-induced migration in particular.Third it develops alternative and/or broader understandings of citizenship and statehood to better cope with these challenges.Finally,it formulates policy recommendations for how to address the challenge of climate-induced migration of whole states and states that lose a significant part of their territory in a fair manner. The main goal of RESIST is to equip democracies with new conceptual and legal instruments to prevent climate emergencies from being tackled in a way that violates basic human rights. Such a goal is achieved through the following methodology: literature review and legal mapping exercise conducted through the research desk over open-access documents, collection of further contributions through a Special Issue, and semi-structured interviews conducted during a secondment in Australia at the Australian National University College of Law and fieldwork in Tuvalu.

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Topic(s)

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Net EU contribution

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€ 251 578,56
Address
PROBLEMVEIEN 5-7
0313 Oslo
Norway

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Region
Norge Oslo og Viken Oslo
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

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