Title: Between rights and sovereignty: the international legal and political grammar of climate displacement

Authors: Sarah Lajeunesse

Addresses: Laval University, 1030 Av. des Sciences Humaines, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada

Abstract: Climate-induced displacement reveals deep tensions in international law and global governance. While increasingly acknowledged in policy discourse, climate migrants remain largely unrecognised under existing refugee and human rights regimes. This paper examines how legal and institutional actors construct the figure of the climate-displaced person through both formal norms and discursive strategies that shape visibility, legitimacy, and exclusion. Drawing on a multi-method analysis of treaties, jurisprudence, and policy texts, it shows how states use legal ambiguity and technocratic language to signal normative concern while avoiding binding obligations. Climate mobility is governed through symbolic inclusion and material exclusion, where vulnerability is rhetorically invoked but protection withheld. This paper theorises this exclusion not as a legal void, but as a form of discursive governance. To close the protection gap, it calls for reinterpreting legal norms and challenging the narratives that render climate displacement exceptional, ultimately advocating shared responsibility as a binding, redistributive principle.

Keywords: interdisciplinary research; climate displacement; legal ambiguity; sovereignty; borders; shared responsibility; discursive governance; migration; human security; vulnerability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMBS.2026.154303

International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 2026 Vol.9 No.1, pp.45 - 65

Received: 17 Jul 2025
Accepted: 13 Jan 2026
Published online: 19 Jun 2026 *

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