Volume 21: Issue 2 (2024)
Carla Arbelaez
International efforts to mitigate, and adapt to, the effects of climate change are often done in the name of present and future generations of children; the people who will likely witness the escalation of its destructive forces. Over the past twenty years, academic literature has given increasing attention to climate migrants and child migrants as subgroups that deserve particularized analysis and tailored recommendations within law and policy. Despite this, there is little academic analysis of the unique experiences, needs and rights of child climate migrants. This paper aims to address this gap by assessing whether the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) sufficiently upholds the rights of this migrant subgroup as guaranteed under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Drawing inspiration from Jane McAdam’s words, “if a line is to be drawn, a child is foremost a child before [they are] a refugee”, this paper concludes that CRC protections are the minimum standards owed to child climate migrants merely for being children, and that state commitments within the GCM can supplement these foundational protections to achieve an optimal international law framework of protection measures for this migrant subgroup.