UN Sea Level Declaration

Why in the News

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has adopted the Declaration on Sea Level Rise by consensus. It affirms that low lying states threatened by rising seas keep their statehood and their maritime zones even if their coastlines retreat inland.

What does the Declaration protect?

1. What it is: The Declaration is a political statement by all UN members on responding to rising seas, like a guarantee that a country’s legal existence outlasts its shoreline.
2. Statehood preserved: Low lying countries such as Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu keep their statehood, sovereign rights and UN membership.
3. Maritime zones fixed: Sea zones under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) are measured from the coast. The Declaration keeps them defined even as coasts retreat, so a shrinking shoreline does not shrink a country’s sea.
4. Citizens’ rights: If the sea swallows a country’s territory, its citizens still keep their nationality and economic rights.
5. The takeaway: A state can now lose its land without losing its legal existence, its seas or its people’s citizenship.

How does the Declaration organise action?

1. Origin: A 2024 high-level meeting gave members a mandate to negotiate an action oriented agreement. This Declaration is the result.
2. Four areas of action: The four page text groups action under four heads:
   • science and data;
   • adaptation and financing;
   • livelihoods, socio-economic development, data sharing and early warnings;
   • the legal consequences of sea-level rise.
3. People centred response: It asks countries to respond in ways that protect livelihoods and cultural heritage, involving affected communities.
4. Continued engagement: Members commit to keep engaging on the issue, including a high-level meeting before the 84th session of the General Assembly ends.

Why do island states need these assurances?

1. Existential threat: Rising seas threaten to swallow most or all of the habitable territory of low lying island states in the coming decades.
2. Collective voice: These states negotiate together as the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in forums including the Conference of the Parties (COP), the annual UN climate summit.
3. Pace of rise: Global mean sea level is currently rising by about 4 to 5 mm a year.

Challenges

1. Not binding: A General Assembly declaration is a political commitment, not a treaty, so it creates no enforceable obligation.
2. Legal survival is not physical survival: Retained statehood does not stop the flooding and salt intrusion that make atolls uninhabitable.
3. Adaptation finance gap: Small islands cannot fund sea walls, raised land or relocation from their own budgets.
4. Narrow migration routes: Pathways for displaced islanders remain small and bilateral. Eg. The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty (2023).

Way Forward

1. Codify in law: The International Law Commission should carry its work on sea-level rise into a binding instrument on statehood and maritime zones.
2. Deposit baselines now: Island states should deposit their baseline coordinates with the UN Secretary-General, so their zones stay fixed as coasts move.
3. Grant based adaptation finance: Channel grants to small island states through the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.
4. Early warning coverage: Extend the UN Early Warnings for All initiative to every low lying coast.
5. India’s island partnerships: India should use the Infrastructure for Resilient Island States initiative to back these measures.

Conclusion

The Declaration settles what happens in law to a drowning state, but leaves the physical and financial question unanswered. The next test is whether the follow up meeting converts political assurance into binding law and money for adaptation.

Back2Basics: UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)

1. What it is: The treaty adopted in 1982, in force since 1994, that sets the rules for using the world’s oceans and their resources.
2. Maritime zones: A coastal state’s territorial sea runs up to 12 nautical miles and its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) up to 200 nautical miles.
3. Institutions: It created the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the International Seabed Authority.
4. India: India ratified UNCLOS in 1995.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2020] Which one of the following statements best describes the term ‘Social Cost of Carbon’? It is a measure, in monetary value, of the (a) long-term damage done by a tonne of CO2, emissions in a given year. (b) requirement of fossil fuels for a country to provide goods and services to its citizens, (c) efforts put in by a climate refugee to adapt to live in a new place. (d) contribution of an individual person to the carbon footprint on the planet Earth. Answer: (a)”