The Fair Limits project kindly invites interested graduate students and scholars to a seminar with Dr. Jamie Draper, who will present a chapter of his forthcoming book on climate change and displacement.

When: Thursday September 1^st, from 10.15-11.45 (walk in from 10 onwards).
Where: Janskerkhof 13a in Utrecht, room 0.06 (‘Stijlkamer’).

Registration not needed.

Climate Change and Territorial Sovereignty

This chapter examines the case of small-island states threatened by sea level rise associated with climate change, focusing on small-island peoples’ rights to self-determination. The first part of the chapter develops a conception of self-determination that stresses both independence from the arbitrary interference of others and a positive capacity to exercise collective control over a meaningful range of issues. The second part of the chapter leverages this conception of self-determination to critically assess three proposals for small-island states: territorial redistribution; deterritorialised statehood; and intrastate territorial autonomy. I give a cautious defence of intrastate territorial autonomy, arguing that a weak version of deterritorialised statehood cannot secure self-determination in meaningful sense, and that both territorial redistribution and a strong version of deterritorialised statehood can do so only by creating morally unacceptable costs. Intrastate territorial autonomy, if implemented in ways that reflect the values of small-island peoples, can secure self-determination and at the same time avoid these moral costs.

Jamie Draper is a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. His research focuses on the political philosophy of climate change, migration and displacement, and the relationship between them. His work has recently been published in the European Journal of Political Theory, the American Political Science Review, and Political Studies. He is currently working on a monograph on climate change and displacement.