Sustainability and National Security

recourse at the border. While denial of entry may also
occur in the case of refugees, refugees are more likely
to be admitted and retained.
What’s different about climate change is that there
may be no going back only going on, perhaps from
country to country, in legal limbo—an ecological Di-
aspora. History instructs that the greater the legal am-
biguity, the more at risk of exploitation such persons
will be. A concern for receiving states is that the num-
bers of environmentally dispossessed persons desir-
ing permanent residence may be unsustainable and if
allowed would tip those states, or hasten the tipping
of those states, into collapse. Much like survivors in
a lifeboat, receiving states will not likely take on so
many others that the ship of state is swamped and all
go under.
One option is to add a protocol to the Refugee
Convention that treats environmentally dispossessed
persons substantially the same as refugees. Another
option would be a treaty dedicated expressly to envi-
ronmentally dispossessed persons. The key question
is whether a new treaty or an additional protocol to
the Refugee Convention would guarantee admittance.
Today it would seem unlikely, if not absurd, that
states, the United States among them, would agree to
accept an unlimited number of environmentally dis-
possessed persons, however compelling their circum-
stances. Only if individual rights and state obligations
are balanced and sustainable would bestowing a right
to migrate be workable.
As mid-century approaches, the orientation of
states may change dramatically. If states, the United
States among them, begin to experience significant cli-
mate change pressures and substantial internal ecomi-
gration, tensions will rise at home and relations with
even peaceful neighbors may deteriorate. The push