A/HRC/38/21 protection of migrants in vulnerable situations, 48 in which it articulates the human rights protections to which all migrants in vulnerable situations, including those affected by climate change, are entitled as well as their normative foundations. 40. In its Key Messages on Human Rights, Climate Change and Migration, 49 OHCHR further highlights the human rights obligations and responsibilities of States and other dutybearers addressing climate change-related human mobility challenges. 41. To comply with those obligations, States should facilitate migration with dignity for all migrants, including those affected by climate change, and address their specific human rights protection needs. Protection needs include water and sanitation, adequate food and housing, and access to health care, social security, education and decent work. They also entail upholding the fundamental principle of non-refoulement and the prohibition of collective expulsion, as well as the rights to liberty, personal integrity and family unity; and ensuring the best interests of the child. States should put in place appropriate mechanisms to guarantee that all migrants who require human rights protection and are unable to return to their countries because of climate change are provided with an effective legal status. 42. States are obligated to protect against displacement because it threatens the effective enjoyment of a broad array of rights under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. States should therefore address the underlying causes that force people to move by pursuing ambitious climate change mitigation in accordance with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. To further reduce the risk of climate change-related displacement, States should employ effective adaptation measures, including with respect to disasters, extreme weather events and slow-onset processes. Efforts to address the root causes of displacement in the context of climate change should seek to protect rights, strengthen social protection systems, reduce disaster risk and exposure and increase adaptive capacity. 43. Non-discrimination and equality are core human rights principles reflected in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and all human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. By disproportionately affecting those already marginalized, climate change threatens States’ commitments related to non-discrimination and equality. States, therefore, must account for the different needs, capacities and vulnerabilities of those individuals most affected by climate change. 44. Freedom of movement, including movement away from climate change-affected areas, is a fundamental right and may allow individuals and communities to avoid the adverse effects of climate change and improve resilience. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the rights of all persons to leave any country, including their own, and to move freely and choose their place of residence within a country once lawfully present. Those rights should be protected and may only be limited if necessary to safeguard a State’s national security, public order, public health or morals, or the rights or freedom of others. 50 Furthermore, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that any migrant seeking to return to his or her own country must not be arbitrarily deprived of the right to do so. 45. Articles 6 and 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantee the rights to life and freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. States must not return a migrant who may face these situations, or other 48 49 50 A/HRC/37/34/Add.1. Available from www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/ClimateChange/ Key_Messages_HR_CC_Migration.pdf. The Human Rights Committee has clarified that any restrictions must be consistent with the State’s international human rights obligations. See Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 15 (1986) on the position of aliens under the Covenant, para. 8. 11