Bogumil Terminski Environmentally-Induced Displacement ... - Cedem

heritage of humankind, is one of the main categories of third-generation human rights. Yet itis mainly of a declarative character. 109 The United Nations has not adopted any binding humanrights document on a clean, intact, and ecologically balanced environment. Another trickysituation is that of those who, due to the potential disappearance of their traditionalhomelands, will be confronted with the possibility of losing their current nationality. In theabsence of the territory it is difficult to speak of a state and therefore also of a citizenship. 110The migrants from the areas which are most at risk of flooding cannot currently expect toreceive refugee status. 111 So what practical help is currently offered to environmentallyinduceddisplaced people? As noted by Ilona Korchut, those people are still “doomed to alottery and the mosaic law of international humanitarian help or its own state law and thevarious migration policies of countries to whose territories they were forced to go, whenfleeing from drought, flood, or dead soil.” 112109The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other documents in this field do not guarantee, unfortunately,the right to an intact environment and sustainable development of habitat. The group of “environmental” humanrights is indeed a later concept; cf. A.E. Boyle, M.R. Anderson, Human rights approaches to environmentalprotection, 1998, p. 2-25.110According to Jelinek’s classical definition, three components that constitute statehood are population, territory,and public authority, cf. K. Tuori, Ratio and Voluntas. The Tension Between Reason and Will in Law, Ashgate,2011, p. 42.111Archipelagic state authorities do not have a chance of receiving compensation for environmental degradation;no entity can be held liable for effects of these environmental changes.112I. Korchut, “Uchodźstwo ekologiczne. Ogólnoświatowy problem, którego nie ma?” Pomagamy. NowoczesnePismo Wolontariuszy, nr 20, p. 11.