SIDS, Legal Statehood, and Sea-level Rise: Written Evidence on the UK Small Island Developing States Strategy (International Development Committee, UK Parliament)

Abstract

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face a discretely legal threat of ‘formal extinction’, due to the interaction between sea-level rise and prevailing interpretations of international law. As sea-levels continue to rise, many SIDS face the loss of inhabitable land. Under orthodox understandings of legal statehood, states cannot exist without some land of this kind. This means that if SIDS lose all of their inhabitable land they may lose their statehood as well.

That loss would be catastrophic. Legally speaking, only states can issue nationality, provide diplomatic protection to their citizens, hold maritime territory, and maintain sovereignty over essential natural resources. Conversely, without their states, the current populations of SIDS face statelessness, with all the cultural, economic, and social deprivation that this implies.

In this submission, I detail the nature and importance of legal statehood, summarise the law of state continuity, and explain the unique legal threat that sea-level rise creates. Finally, I make three indicative recommendations that the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FDCO) might consider including within the UK Small Island Developing States Strategy. These recommendations are as follows:

1. The UK should make a formal commitment to observing the legal continuity of SIDS, notwithstanding any future losses of inhabitable land they may suffer. Three ways in which this could be accomplished are provided.

2. The UK should make a formal commitment to maritime baselines being ‘fixed’ rather than ‘ambulatory’ for the purposes of the 1982 United Nations (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). An interpretive declaration on the text of UNCLOS should also be sought along these lines.

3. The UK should provide financial and logistical support for technological and other initiatives by SIDS designed to prevent and mitigate the loss of statehood.