By Andrea Maria Pelliconi, Gamal Basha, and Sourina Bej
Introduction
On 13 November 2025, a First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) in the United Kingdom (UK) recognised a Filipino man’s right to remain in the country on grounds related to climate change, including livelihood loss and deteriorating mental health. Challenging a negative decision by the Home Office, the Applicant filed a human rights appeal under Article 8 of the UK Human Rights Act (HRA) and equivalent provision under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (right to private and family life). The Judge considered the question of social reintegration after displacement due to extreme climate events, concluding that climate change can create “very significant obstacles to integration” should the applicant be forced to return to his home country, which has been heavily impacted by increasingly disruptive typhoons.
The success of this case constitutes an important step forward in recognising the impact that climate change and extreme environmental events may have on communities and individuals within immigration proceedings. To date, there is no legal precedent in the UK in which Courts at the Upper Tribunal Appeal or Supreme Court levels have taken the challenges posed by climate change into account in asylum or human rights claims. While this does not constitute a generally binding precedent because it was decided by a First-Tier Tribunal, the case is now definitive since the UK Home Office has not appealed against the decision, apparently accepting the validity of climate change arguments. As such, this case is an important example for future litigation where climate and environmental impacts affect the ability of individuals to return and reintegrate in their countries of origin.
Facts
The case concerned an individual from the Philippines whose home was destroyed during Typhoon Ondoy and who suffered from depression and Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder due to such traumatic climate events. The man used to work as a farmer with his father until repeated and increasingly violent typhoons destroyed his family’s house and crops. The applicant’s home remained flooded and inaccessible after a typhoon in 2025, and his family was forced to spend days without access to basic resources as they sought relocation.
The individual sought refuge in the UK, where he found a job as a caregiver. He has now been living in the UK for thirteen years and has severed most ties with his country of origin, although he still supports his father financially, making him the only source of income. He also started a new life with a British woman of Filipino origin, who has made it clear that she wouldn’t be willing to move to the Philippines were the man to be returned. This indicates the disruption that a return would cause to the Applicant’s private life and ties to the UK.
The climate-driven destruction of his house and livelihood generated serious issues for the Applicant’s mental health, showing how severe impacts and trauma may be triggered by the loss of harvest in a subsistence economy. The typhoon was not an isolated event, but rather part of a growing trend of increasingly frequent and violent disasters driven by climate change. This factor made the possibility of returning to the Philippines and reintegrating into the Filipino society extremely challenging in practical terms and would create further mental health issues and re-traumatisation. Indeed, while the case was underway, new intense typhoons battered the Philippines, including Entang, Kristine, Emong, Nando, and Opong. Typhoon Tino struck on the very day of the hearing, and Typhoon Uwan occurred during the week the decision was issued.
The frequency and intensity of such climate and environmental events have so profoundly affected the Philippines that, in September 2025, the government launched an anti-flood project. Unfortunately, the project later became embroiled in patronage politics and corruption scandals, exposing maladaptation and the politics surrounding climate governance. This demonstrates the government’s inability or unwillingness to effectively address the issue and provide adequate protection to climate-vulnerable communities in the country.
Decision
In overturning the Home Office’s previous decision, Judge Adio accepted the Applicant’s private life appeal ex Article 8 HRA, considering that climate change can create “very significant obstacles to integration” should he be forced to return to the Philippines. The right to private and family life ex Article 8 HRA may be disproportionately affected in cases of deportation when an individual has established a new life in the host country and faces forcible return to a country of origin.
The Judge relied on paragraph 276ADE(1)(vi) of the UK Immigration Rules (or “Appendix Private Life”), according to which individuals can obtain “leave to remain” when there would be “very significant obstacles to integration” in the country of origin if required to leave the UK, including the ability to participate in the country’s social and cultural life, build relationships, and operate normally in everyday life (Kamara). This is a high evidentiary threshold, but it does not require proof of serious harm or danger, so it can succeed even when the country of return is not unsafe. In cases concerning the right to private life, Courts should also consider the principle of proportionality and assess whether removal would constitute a disproportionate interference with private life overall.
To decide the case at hand, the Judge relied on reports by country experts commenting on the environmental and climatic situation in the Philippines, as well as Psychiatric Assessments by medical consultants to establish the impact of climate change on mental health, and whether such issues may constitute a key barrier to reintegration into the Philippines’ society. In accepting expert psychiatric and country evidence, the Tribunal found that climate change contributed directly to the applicant’s mental vulnerability and might significantly obstruct the Applicant’s reintegration in the Philippines.
The Tribunal then considered the principle of proportionality and examined whether removal would constitute a disproportionate interference with private life overall. Such interference was weighed against the mental health impacts of forced return, as well as broader public interests such as the fact that the applicant works as a caregiver, a sector struggling with labour shortages in the UK. Eventually, taking into account climate change impacts and related toll on mental health, the Judge found that a decision to return the Applicant to the Philippines would disproportionately interfere with his private life. As a result, the Applicant was granted leave to remain in the UK on human rights grounds.
International Standards on Non-Refoulement in Case of Climate Displacement
The case of this Filipino Applicant may be regarded as the first “climate refugee” case in the UK. In technical terms, the term “climate refugee” is improper as it is not a category that is recognised in law, neither in the UK nor international refugee law. “Climate refugees” are not a legally protected category under the Refugee Convention and its Protocol, which focus on state-driven persecution on protected grounds. As a result, forced displacement due to climate change and environmental events is not a ground to receive the status of “refugee”.
Nevertheless, the growing awareness of the impact on extreme climate and environmental events on transnational human displacement has led to the recognition that other forms of international protection should be granted to individuals forced to leave their homes as a result of climate change. Increasingly, courts across the world have started to recognise forms of international protection on humanitarian grounds, while countries such as Australia and New Zealand have made efforts to establish “climate mobility visas” to allow for the relocation of individuals from climate-vulnerable Small Island Developing States.
Domestic and international courts have also contributed to expanding the scope of application of the principle of non-refoulement. This peremptory principle, enshrined in Article 33 of the Refugee Convention, prohibits states from returning, expelling, or extraditing any person to a country where they face a real risk of persecution, torture, inhuman treatment, or irreparable harm, based on protected grounds. However, this principle has increasingly been understood as a general jus cogens human rights principle that applies beyond the normative constraints of refugee law. Among others, such expansive, human-rights based approach to non-refoulement has been applied to climate-related harms.
An early example is the 2014 case of AC (Tuvalu) vs New Zealand, in which Judge Bruce Burson of Auckland’s Immigration and Protection Tribunal found that natural disasters, including those caused or exacerbated by climate change, may provide grounds for recognition as a protected person under Section 131 of New Zealand’s Immigration Act 2009. This provision recognises protection “if there are substantial grounds for believing that [the individual] would be in danger of being subjected to arbitrary deprivation of life or cruel treatment if deported” (para. 70). This means that, in principle, individuals may not be returned to places where they are at risk of suffering from violations of their right to life and personal integrity ex Articles 6 and 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Unfortunately, the Tribunal found that the necessary evidentiary threshold was not met in the Appellant’s case.
More authoritatively, in 2019, the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee held that climate-related harms are relevant to the application of the principle of non-refoulement, so people displaced by climate change may not be returned to their countries if they face immediate, irreparable risks to their life or freedom (Teitiota case). This expansive reading of non-refoulement was adopted on the basis of state obligations derived from Article 6 of the ICCPR. Eventually, the principle was not applied to Mr Teitiota, since the Committee found that he was not exposed to a sufficiently immediate and irreparable harm in the case de quo. Nevertheless, the case opened the door for future application of non-refoulement to climate-related displacement.
More recently, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) issued an Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights, affirming the Teitiota principle and recognising that when the effects of climate change pose a “real risk of irreparable harm” to fundamental rights such as the right to life, states have obligations under the principle of non-refoulement not to return individuals to situations where such risks exist (para 433). It also highlighted that states should establish legal and humanitarian protection mechanisms for people displaced across international borders due to climate impacts, including through temporary protection arrangements, humanitarian visas, and other legal avenues providing protection against return to harm (ibid).
In July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) also issued an Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change, confirming the approach taken by the UN Committee and the IACtHR. The Court explained that conditions resulting from climate change are likely to endanger individuals and may lead them to seek safety abroad or prevent them from returning to their own country, so states must respect the principle of non-refoulement “where there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk of irreparable harm to the right to life” (para 378). Notably, the ICJ omitted any reference to the requirement of “imminent harm” to trigger non-refoulement obligations, applying the “real risk” standard without any reference to the concept of imminence. This is consistent with General Comment No. 36 of the Human Rights Committee, which recognised that non-refoulement under Article 6 ICCPR could be triggered even in absence of an imminent or actual danger of loss of life (para 7).
The ICJ’s deliberation established universally applicable standards that pertain to the obligations of all states under international law. It is expected that the upcoming Advisory Opinion of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR) will also follow this trend, corroborating the emergence of a general understanding of non-refoulement in cases of climate-related displacement.
Non-Refoulement and Human Rights-Based Appeals in the UK
In the UK, there is no precedent of applying the principle of non-refoulement to individuals displaced by climate change. Beyond climate displacement, claims in application of the principle of non-refoulement are usually made under the right to life (Article 2 HRA and ECHR) and the right to be free from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3 HRA and ECHR). This follows well-established case law from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which holds that expelling an individual to face “substantial grounds” to believe they face a real risk of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment violates Article 3 ECHR, even though the provision does not explicitly mention non-refoulement (e.g., Soering v. UK, Chahal v. UK). The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by the UK in 1988, also affirms that states shall not “expel, return (‘refouler’) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture” (Article 3).
However, applications ex Article 2 and 3 in the UK require proof of a real and imminent risk, which is typically very difficult to meet. This becomes particularly complex in cases of climate displacement. Given the slow-onset nature of many climate events and the relative unpredictability of disasters, the issue of imminence and concreteness of harm remains a most contentious and challenging aspect of climate change-based protection applications in the UK and elsewhere. As mentioned, the ICJ has established that the principle of non-refoulement in cases of climate-related displacement does not require imminent harm; however, this standard has not yet been incorporated into UK case law, which continues to apply a high threshold.
As a result, claims based on Article 2 or 3 may be difficult to argue before UK Courts. By contrast, as mentioned, the private life route under Article 8 does not require proof of a real and imminent risk; rather, it focuses on whether there would be “very significant obstacles to integration” in the country of return. Even if they often arise in the same factual scenarios and can operate in tandem, the principle of non-refoulement and the rules on “leave to remain” based on private life are doctrinally distinct in the UK. The “reintegration” test entails a high evidentiary threshold, too, but it is more straightforward to establish in light of the specific characteristics of climate-related harms. This is why the legal team’s choice to undertake an appeal on human rights grounds under Article 8 was the best course of action in this case.
This approach has significant potential for transferability to other cases, particularly where government action to address or mitigate the effects of climate change is inadequate or even detrimental. For instance, in regions like the Nile or Mekong, transboundary dam operations can worsen the effects of climate change by increasing droughts or flooding, which can destroy homes, damage farming, and reduce access to food and water. These impacts, especially when combined with weak governance or unfair resource distribution, can lead to repeated displacement and serious stress or mental health problems. Similar to the Tribunal’s approach in this case, these harms can be understood together as creating “very significant obstacles to integration” if a person is forced to return. This shows that Article 8 can be a useful legal pathway, because it allows decision-makers to look at the full situation of the individual, including how environmental harm and personal vulnerability are connected, even when the high thresholds of Articles 2 or 3 are not met.
Conclusion
As the first known successful case of its kind, the legal victory of the Filipino Applicant is a milestone in upholding the fundamental rights of individuals displaced by climate change in the UK. For the time being, claims based on Article 8 appear to be the most viable route for such cases. Looking ahead, UK judges may begin to assess non-refoulement submissions ex Articles 2 and 3 through the lens of climate change following the understanding developed by the above-mentioned international bodies, recognising that severe climate-related harms can, in certain circumstances, contribute to threats to life and conditions amounting to inhuman or degrading treatment. They may also start to take into account how climate change exacerbates other human rights violations, for instance, by acknowledging that climate-induced loss of livelihood may be linked to domestic violence and risks of human trafficking and exploitation, resulting in situations of “Modern Slavery”. The hope is that this case will constitute a first step towards developing a legal culture that recognises the increasing protection needs related to climate mobilities in a warming world.
[The legal team for this case comprised Gamal Basha of Qore Legal and Ronan Toal of Garden Court Chambers.]
Andrea Maria Pelliconi, Lecturer in Human Rights Law, University of Southampton and Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
Gamal Basha, Legal Consultant at Qore Legal; immigration, asylum and appeals specialist
Sourina Bej, doctoral candidate at the University of Bonn
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