Os refugiados ambientais e a necessidade de sua inclusão no ordenamento jurídico internacional

Abstract

Refuge, acknowledged on an intercontinental level by the 1951 Refugee Status Convention and then added on by the 1967 Protocol, is ground of International Law dedicated to those who, by reason of race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, or political view, suffer or have fears of suffering persecution. This tool is not, however, sufficient to protect a new category: the environmental refugee. This, in turn, is said to be characterized by the forced exodus from his state or region due to environmental disasters, be they natural or consequence of human action. In both cases, material and social loss is unaccountable, by which those people's human rights are considered to be in severe violation, being submitted to strenuous conditions, position that gives them no special treatment to guarantee their subsistence. So far, a few countries have implemented initiatives aimed at remedying the situation of countless refugees, but the statistics as still alarming. The present work has as end the analysis of legal ground and the reason behind the 1951 Convention not applying to environmental refugees; looking deeper into the tools that can be applied in favor of such refugees; investigating how states, as members of the international community, can act individually and together, seeking environmental justice by means of differentiated responsibilities, and looking into how disregarding the protection of environmental refuge might result in the loss of nationality of the affected individuals. The applied methodology was bibliographic, resorting to research on books, articles and thesis to rate the impact of the theme in recent times.