Climate Change and Migration: Rethinking Justice in International Law. An interview with Katarina Velkov.

Interviewing by: Irina Samson - SET Europe board chair

Editing by: Sara Khosrowjerdi - SET Europe Communications

Illustration from Documented

Q: As a graduate from the same Alma Mater, my MA Thesis work has focused on climate change education in vulnerable contexts like Nepal, where education is essential for building resilience. Your article looks at another consequence of climate injustice – climate migration. What led you to focus on this dimension?

A: My interest in climate-related issues was initially oriented toward activism and policy-making, well before I began my doctoral studies. Back in 2015, I served as the UN Youth Delegate of Serbia and represented my country at the General Assembly where, among other, I addressed the issues young people will encounter because of the effects of climate change. It was also a period during which I volunteered with various international NGOs working on environmental justice, and it came as a sort of natural response to the crisis our generation is already facing, and will continue to face.

Then research came into the picture, first with MA, then a PhD. My thesis examined the evolving responsibilities of states and corporate actors in addressing climate-induced rights challenges, with a particular focus on climate litigation and burden-sharing in climate migration governance. The article came as a result, directly out of that work. I argue that climate migration sits at one of the most undertheorized intersections in international law, at the point where scientific attribution meets legal responsibility, and where the people most affected have the least institutional recourse.

Q: In your article, you argue that climate migration challenges the way we currently understand responsibility under human rights law. What do you see as the main limitation of the current framework?

A: In short, it is insufficient – though in one way that is understandable, given that human rights law predates the concept of anthropogenic climate change. The core treaties and conventions were drafted at a time when climate change, as we understand it today, was not part of the legal imagination. Think of the Refugee Convention – it was designed to respond to persecution, political violence, displacement by human agents. The idea that diffuse, probabilistic, transboundary environmental harm could generate comparable legal obligations simply wasn’t on the table.

Certainly, questions of environmental protection existed. But anthropogenic climate change introduced a crucial additional element – the human factor, and therefore the question of responsibility. Who caused this? Who benefited from the activities that produced it? Who should bear the costs of the harm it generates? Human rights law struggles to answer those questions cleanly.

The other side of the problem is governmental reluctance to respond. Adaptation and mitigation are costly, and here I don’t refer only not to the financial cost but also the political one. But that doesn't change the fact that climate-induced migration is real and present, and as such demands just and actionable responses. The law needs to catch up to the reality, and that is ultimately what my research is trying to contribute to.

Q: One of the most striking ideas in your article is that responsibility for climate displacement cannot remain state-centered. Why is that shift so important today?

A: State responsibility is one side of the coin, but it was developed for a world where states were the dominant actors that shape global conditions. That world has changed significantly. Globalization has produced a new category of actors, multinational corporations, whose economic footprint, carbon emissions, and political influence compete and in some cases exceed that of many states. Advancement of attribution science helped us measure the CO2 emissions across industries. Some of the largest fossil fuel companies have contributed more to cumulative global emissions than entire nations, and  they still operate largely outside the accountability frameworks designed for state conduct.

This matters enormously for climate migration, because the communities most exposed to displacement such as the small island states, subsistence farming communities, and populations in climate-vulnerable regions have typically contributed the least to the problem. If responsibility remains “chained” exclusively in state-to-state frameworks, those structural asymmetries will never be addressed. We need accountability mechanisms that can reach the actors who have the most causal connection to the harm and the most resources to contribute to remedy, and today that means bringing corporations, international institutions, and states into a shared framework of differentiated responsibility.

Q: Your framework brings states, corporations, and global institutions into the picture. In practice, what would shared responsibility actually look like?

A: I want to be honest that we are still a long way from operationalizing this in full. And I think this is important to acknowledge, as overclaiming what existing legal tools can do is part of what has slowed progress. But there are concrete directions. For states, it means strengthening national legislation on corporate due diligence in climate-sensitive supply chains. For instance, in practical terms, we can think about translating the ICJ Advisory Opinion on climate change into binding domestic obligations. For corporations, it means accepting that climate attribution science is closing the evidentiary gap that has historically shielded major emitters from liability, and climate litigation is advancing faster than many anticipated. Private actors must make stronger commitments towards circular economy and net zero. They should participate scientifically (through R&D investments) and financially (through adaptation and mitigation projects) to support affected communities. For international institutions, it means developing dedicated legal status and protection mechanisms for climate-displaced persons rather than relying on existing frameworks not designed for this purpose.

The most honest answer is that shared responsibility requires shared architecture, and building that is a contested process. What my research tries to contribute is the normative foundation, or in other words, a clear account of who owes what, to whom, and on what basis. The institutional design follows from that.

Q: If communities are not given the tools to understand and prepare for climate risks, can we really say that responsibility begins only once displacement happens?

A: No, and I think this is actually one of the more productive tensions in the field right now. The dominant legal framework is still largely reactive and asks what protections or remedies are owed once displacement has occurred. But responsibility, properly understood, has a preventive dimension that the law has been slow to formalize. If states and corporations have credible knowledge that specific communities are at risk (and the science now makes that knowledge increasingly precise) then the failure to inform, equip, and support those communities before a crisis hits is itself a form of rights violation. Access to information, the right to participate in decisions that affect one’s environment, and the duty to protect are the obligations that activate way before the very moment of displacement. The question is whether legal systems are willing to enforce them prospectively, which is easier said than done, especially in political terms.

Q: Your article points to structural vulnerability as something politically produced. How important is it to address those vulnerabilities before migration becomes a necessity?

A: It is fundamental. Understanding vulnerability means being able to respond to it, it means reducing risk before a disaster forces the issue. Structural vulnerability is the product of historical decisions about land use, investment, infrastructure, political representation, access to resources… the list is long. Communities that are most exposed to climate harm are, in most cases, communities that have been systematically excluded from the decisions that shaped their exposure.

That is why I find the framing of “climate migration” as a last resort so important. It asks what conditions made it unavoidable, and for whom. That’s why addressing structural vulnerability, both  through adaptation investment, legal recognition of at-risk communities, or meaningful political participation is a first step for any climate justice framework that takes seriously the difference between people who move by choice and people who move because all other options have been exhausted.

Q: If policymakers were to take your framework seriously, what is the first change that should happen to better protect communities at risk of climate displacement?

A: The most urgent change would be the formal recognition of climate displacement as a distinct legal category at the international level. Here I agree with a number of scholars who argue that such a category shouldn’t be molded and pushed to fit existing refugee framework which was not designed for it. What the world needs is a dedicated instrument that captures the specific vulnerabilities, rights, and entitlements of climate-displaced persons. Without that recognition, everything else is improvised. That step would create the architecture within which more specific obligations – for states of origin, states of transit, states of destination, and corporate actors – could be developed and enforced.

I would also argue for mandatory climate risk disclosure requirements for corporations operating in vulnerable regions, linked to enforceable due diligence obligations. The ICJ Advisory Opinion has moved the legal conversation forward significantly, and we now need the political commitment to translate that into binding national and regional law. This is actually something I engage with directly in a new research piece. I propose a Regional Climate Passport system that would allocate protection responsibilities according to historical emissions and capacity, operationalized through regional agencies, and financed by levies on high-emitting countries. This is what institutional innovation might actually look like.

Q: Ultimately, what kind of climate justice framework do we need if we want both to protect displaced communities and reduce the vulnerabilities that force people to move?

A: The one that is simultaneously backward-looking and forward-looking. Backward-looking in the sense of acknowledging historical responsibility, being on of the core principles of climate justice. It needs to be forward-looking in the sense of investing seriously in vulnerability reduction, adaptation, and the kind of structural change that makes displacement a genuine choice rather than a forced outcome. Concretely, that means a framework that gives affected communities legal standing and meaningful participation in the decisions that shape their futures, and that treats loss and damage as obligation rather than a charity. Such a framework requires immense work, but I believe we already have the normative foundations, and scholars working in this area are making the intellectual case clearly enough that policymakers and courts cannot turn a blind eye to it.

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Katarina Velkov holds a PhD from the international joint doctoral program in Human Rights, Society, and Multi-level Governance at the University of Padova, where she also earned a master’s degree in human rights (cum laude). Her research lies at the intersection of human rights, climate justice, and corporate accountability, with a particular interest in the role of states and transnational actors in responding to climate-induced rights challenges. She was a visiting scholar at the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), in the research group in International Public Law and International Relations, and at the University of Nicosia (Cyprus), Department of Law. She currently teaches BA courses in International human rights law and Global governance.