A luta pelo reconhecimento internacional do refugiado ambiental junto ao comitê de Direitos Humanos da ONU: o caso de Ioane Teitiota, de Kiribati

Abstract

Since the 1970s, environmental issues have been the focus of international debates, as these issues and their consequences have directly affected the countries' political, economic and so- cial order. With global warming as the main object of analysis, several agreements were built and monitoring started to be done, mainly with regard to the effects on human beings. The warming of the planet and, consequently, the melting of polar ice caps, causes the increase of the oceans, putting at risk the existence of islands and several coastal cities, which has caused problems of subsistence in these places, in addition to increasing human mobility. In this con- text, the article proposes to study the postulation of an environmental refuge proposed by a citizen of Kiribati, a group of islands that is today one of the most affected by the increase in the volume of ocean waters. The petition was analyzed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee and is an important precedent in terms of the environment and its effects on human beings, especially regarding the reasoning used and the facts narrated in the request. Based on qualitative analysis, the study intends to be descriptive, based essentially on bibliographic and documentary methods. Thus, it will be divided into the following topics: the discussion on the concept of environmental refugee and its possible acceptance as a new category of refuge; Kir- ibati's history and current situation with regard to climate change and impacts on the survival of the people of these islands; and an analysis of the petition proposed by Ioane Teitiota before the UN Human Rights Committee, as an asylum seeker in New Zealand.