Submission in Support of Petitioners
Case No. CHR-NI-2016-0001
Security of tenure;
Housing, land and property restitution;
Equal and non-discriminatory access to adequate housing; and
Participation in housing-related decision-making at the national and
community levels.110
States “must make every possible effort, within their available resources, to realize
the right to adequate housing and to take steps in that direction without delay”111
and must prevent third parties from interfering with the right.112
Sea level rise and other climate-related harms will force millions of people
from their homes during this century.113 Some people have already lost their homes
to sea level rise and extreme weather events, and entire communities are now
facing the imminent prospect of displacement.114 In the Philippines, more severe
storms and flooding events linked to climate change have already displaced
millions of people from their homes. Typhoon Haiyan alone displaced more than
four million people and damaged or destroyed more than one million homes.115
Without adaptation, the IPCC projects with high confidence that “hundreds of
millions of people will be affected by coastal flooding and will be displaced due to
land loss by year 2100.”116 Drought and desertification could lead to the
displacement of millions more. Many people may also migrate due to adverse
impacts on their livelihoods associated with declining agricultural yields, the
destruction of ecosystem services, and resource shortages caused by climate
change.
110
OHCHR, The Right to Adequate Housing, Fact Sheet no. 21/Rev.1 (2009) at 3.
Id. at 7.
112
Id. at 33.
113
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION (IOM), MIGRATION, ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE
CHANGE: ASSESSING THE EVIDENCE (2009).
114
Anthony Oliver-Smith, Vulnerability of Coastal Peoples: Responding to the Local Challenges of
Global Climate Change in the 21st Century, INTERDISCIPLINARY SECURITY CONNECTIONS Publication
No.7/2009 (2009).
115
SHERWOOD ET AL. (2014), supra note 30, at 1.
116
IPCC WGII (2014), supra note 8, at 364.
111
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School
21
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