Ecological Migrants: International Legal Status and Prospects of its Consolidation

This article is devoted to ecological migrants, a category of persons that arose as a result of their displacement due to ecological reasons. At the present time ecological migrants do not have a legal status that would be enshrined in international law. This paper gives a definition of the content of the international legal status of ecological migrants, which reflects main characteristic of this category of persons. The article discusses prospects of establishing a protection of ecological migrants under a separate international treaty that would enshrine the international legal status of ecological migrants, lists advantages of an international treaty, proposes a concept of the treaty indicating prospective rights and obligations of ecological migrants and international legal obligations of Member States.