Decolonizing refugeehood: The rise of climate refugees as a new legal subjectivity

Abstract

This article examines the misrecognition of climate refugees as a form of climate coloniality, through the lens of decolonial environmental justice (EJ). I address two research questions: (1) Why is climate refugeehood a matter of decolonial EJ? (2) How can decolonial EJ contribute to overcoming the colonial impasse that prevents the expansion of the notion of a refugee in international law? This case of climate coloniality is examined through the tripartite notion of the coloniality of power, knowledge, and being to decolonize the concept of refugeehood while rethinking the current model of responsibility and the subjects entitled to it.

Keywords

• climate refugees
• climate coloniality
• decolonial environmental Justice
• vulnerability
• non-state actors