Ioane Teitiota

Who is Ioane Teitiota?

Ioane Teitiota was born on Tarawa, the main atoll of the Republic of Kiribati, circa the 1970s. He worked as a farmer and labourer on Tarawa, where he and his wife struggled for years with a household plot repeatedly inundated by unusually high tides, land disputes driven by shrinking habitable ground, and a freshwater supply increasingly contaminated by seawater intrusion. In 2007 the couple moved to New Zealand on temporary work permits together with their children, and after their permits expired they remained in the country. In 2013, facing deportation, Teitiota applied for refugee and protected-person status, arguing that returning to Kiribati would endanger his family because rising seas and climate-driven land scarcity had made the islands unsafe to live on — a claim widely reported as one of the first attempts by anyone to seek asylum specifically as a 'climate change refugee.' New Zealand's Immigration and Protection Tribunal, High Court, Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court all rejected his claim between 2013 and 2015, finding no immediate individualized risk to his life, and he was deported to Kiribati in September 2015. Teitiota then brought his case to the UN Human Rights Committee, which on 7 January 2020 issued a landmark ruling, Teitiota v. New Zealand (CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016): while it upheld New Zealand's original decision, the Committee found for the first time that a state could, in principle, violate the right to life under international law by deporting someone to a country where the effects of climate change created a real risk to that right, establishing a benchmark cited in climate-migration law ever since.

Sources: Ioane Teitiota v. New Zealand, CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016, UN Human Rights Committee, 7 January 2020 · OHCHR, "Historic UN Human Rights case opens door to climate change asylum claims" (2020) · Foreign Policy, "The Making of a Climate Refugee" (28 January 2015)