According to the Geneva Conventions, every person who needs shelter must have access to a fair asylum procedure as a basic human right. To comply with this, Greens call for a new Geneva Convention that guarantees legal protection for new kinds of refugees. Such a convention must recognize forced abortion and sterilization, as well as gender-based persecution, such as genital mutilation, honour killings and rape, as grounds for asylum.

Asylum seekers fleeing a conflict should be granted protection, with minimum rights such as family reunification and access to the labour market. If the conflict they fled continues for several years, they should be granted permanent residence status.

There are now more and more migrants and displaced persons and their families who must leave their land because of environmental degradation or disaster. The concept of “refugee” must be extended to those who are forced to migrate because of climatic change and other environmental threats.

Greens will work to introduce the promotion and recognition of environmental human rights in the third-generation human rights category and promote their inclusion in the Geneva Convention through the adoption of an additional Protocol. Therefore Greens propose a third international Covenant that codifies the right to a healthy environment as well as the right of access to the natural resources necessary for survival and respect for intergenerational equality.

The entire international community should be responsible for supporting and helping ecological refugees. Industrialized and rich countries have a moral and financial duty to welcome refugees or pay for their refuge, in proportion to their contribution to climate change.