Caught in the Climate Crisis: Pakistan’s Urgent Need for a Legal Response to Climate Refugees

Climate refugees refer to individuals who had to migrate from their birth origin as a result of floods, drought, rising sea levels or farms which were endowed with excessively salty soil to support crop production. Climate change has been forcing people to be climate refugees. This paper makes an effort to define climate refugees and emphasise their importance. In fulfilling the aim of this article, the doctrinal method helps to incorporate the important subject of climate refugees in Pakistan. This paper focuses on the possible displacement due to climate change in Pakistan, as discussed in the article. Notably, it seeks to focus on the fact that there is no specific legal provision in Pakistan that can address the issue of climate refugees. Furthermore, there are other judicial cases that the article recognizes did not give proper attention to this problem. It describes the difficulties that refugees in Pakistan experience caused by climate change. In order to address these challenges, the article calls for the immediate formation of a substantial legal reaction that will address the phenomenon of climate refugees. It outlines major parts of a possible law and emphasizes the importance of global solidarity and assistance in fighting this new-nascent problem. Lastly, it focuses on preventive legal undertaking and coordination to protect climate refugees in Pakistan.