Climate Change and International Legal Personality: “Climate Deterritorialized Nations” as Emerging Subjects of International Law?

Abstract This article deals with the sea level rise phenomenon caused by the climate change process and its impact on the statehood of so-called disappearing island states as well as on the consequent factual and legal status of their populations. In classical international law doctrine, the loss of a state’s territory will lead to the extinction of statehood and, consequently, the loss of that state’s international legal personality, and possibly also to the statelessness of its nationals. This article proposes an alternative solution based on the transformation of disappearing island states into new non-territorial subjects of international law — “climate deterritorialized nations” — as successors to disappeared inundated states.