A Kiribati man who requested to stay in New Zealand as a refugee of climate change after his work visa had expired was rejected by the country's high court on Monday.
Ioane Teitiota - a native of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati - asked the New Zealand High Court to allow him and his family to remain in the country because rising sea levels had left no land to safely live on back home.
The island nation is especially exposed to the effects of global climate change due to its low elevation, BBC reported.
But that reason wasn't enough for High Court Justice John Priestley, who said that issues of the environment were not acknowledged as proper legal justification.
"By returning to Kiribati, he would not suffer a sustained and systemic violation of his basic human rights such as the right to life...or the right to adequate food, clothing and housing," Priestley wrote in his concluding statement.
37-year-old Teitiota has spent the past five years living in New Zealand, remaining in the country even after his visa work permit had run out. Teitiota reportedly requested asylum in New Zealand earlier this year, but the immigration department denied his petition on grounds that he wasn't in danger of oppression in his home country. Teitiota's lawyer appealed the judgment, saying that quality of the family's life would suffer because of rising sea levels and high population.
The Kiribati native's legal representation said that Teitiota was being "persecuted passively by the circumstances in which he's living, which the Kiribati government has no ability to ameliorate."
Teitiota and his wife's three children were all born in New Zealand, BBC reported.
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