International Legal Consequences of Loosing States’ Territories due to Climate Change

In May 2009, the New York Times published an article about the efforts made by the President of the Republic of Maldives in the fight against climate change that create a threat of disappearance of the state. Rising of sea level negatively affects the state of coastlines of the Maldives in different parts of the state. According to the estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the increase in greenhouse gas emissions creates an increasing threat to the existence of the low-lying island states of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, including Kiribati, Tuvalu, Maldives, Marshall Islands. A recent IPCC report presented a list of 40 endangered countries. There is a high probability that by the end of the 21st century the territory of a number of the currently existing states of the Pacific and Indian Oceans will become uninhabitable due to climate change. Based on this, there will be a number of problems, associated not only with the resettlement of residents of island states, but also with the possibility of further preserving statehood by countries that have lost their territory due to sea level rise. The relevance of this study is explained by the following: the consequences of climate change in the event of flooding of a number of states will be enormous and unprecedented. In this regard, there is a growing concern of the world community about water level rising in the World Ocean and, accordingly, the prospects for the disappearance of a number of countries. The loss of territory by some countries due to the action of natural factors creates an extremely difficult problem for the world community, which consists in determining the possibility of the existence of a state without a plot of land it occupies and finding mechanisms for solving the problem. The object of sresearch in this study is the international legal consequences caused by the loss of territory by states: a possible change in the approach to the understanding of sovereignty; admissibility of the preservation of legal personality by states. The purpose of this study is to establish whether it is possible for a state to exist without a territory, to analyze the proposed ways to solve the problem of the loss of the latter, and to suggest what a universal mechanism for overcoming the consequences of climate change should be, if such a mechanism can exist. To achieve the goals, the following tasks have been set: 1. To study the existing views in the doctrine of international law on the possibility of recognizing statehood for a state that has lost its territory. 2. Consider the concept of deterritorialized sovereignty that emerged in the doctrine 3. Assess the impact of the loss of territory on the legal personality of states. 4. Consider possible mechanisms for solving the problem of the loss of territory by states. 5. Assume what the universal mechanism for overcoming the consequences of sea level rise should be based on. Understand what trends exist in solving the problem of loss of territory. 6. Understand what trends exist in solving the problem of loss of territory