LONDON, AUGUST 30: Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant has said that people displaced by the slow degradation of their land and environment deserve a legal status of their own, as existing refugee and migration laws were not designed to address such forms of displacement.
Speaking at the High-Level Commonwealth Policy Dialogue on Climate Justice at Marlborough House in London, the CJI warned that the climate crisis would test the boundaries of long-established legal categories and compel legal institutions to respond to emerging forms of vulnerability.
CJI Surya Kant said people forced to leave their homes because of gradual environmental degradation should not be left in a legal grey area between existing frameworks.
“They deserve a status of their own,” the CJI said, stressing that such people should not be left between two bodies of law that were never designed for climate-induced displacement.
He said the situation was also a reminder that the climate crisis is challenging traditional legal classifications, which have long been taken for granted.
The Chief Justice further emphasised that judges and legal institutions have a responsibility to ensure legal certainty, particularly when people are at their most vulnerable.
He pointed out that climate vulnerability is not distributed equally, with the impacts of climate change often being felt first and most severely by communities whose livelihoods depend directly on the natural environment.
“When a smallholder or a fisher-family loses land, water, or a harvest to a crisis they did little to cause, the consequences extend far beyond environmental harm,” CJI Surya Kant said.
He observed that climate-related losses can threaten the foundations of livelihood, dignity and equality, making climate justice not merely an environmental concern but also a matter of rights, social justice and legal protection.
The High-Level Commonwealth Policy Dialogue on Climate Justice was organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA), bringing together legal and policy stakeholders to deliberate on the evolving challenges posed by climate change.
The CJI’s remarks highlighted the need for legal systems to evolve alongside the climate crisis, particularly to address the rights and protection of people who are increasingly being displaced by environmental degradation and climate-related impacts. (KNC)
