Institute for Migrant Rights
Railway line at Cianjur station, c. 1890 · KITLV, CC BY 4.0

Migration Jurisprudence from the South › New Zealand

Teitiota v. New Zealand

UN Human Rights Committee · New Zealand · 2020-01-07 · International body

Citation: CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016
Type of case: Constitutional and human rights
Outcome: Decided against the migrant side

Question

Did New Zealand breach the right to life by returning a man to Kiribati despite climate change?

What the court decided

No violation on the facts, but the Committee said climate change can trigger the duty not to return people where it exposes them to a real risk to life.

In plain language

After he was sent back, the man took his case to the UN Human Rights Committee. It found no breach, but said that in future returning people to places made unliveable by climate change could break the treaty.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Setelah dipulangkan, pria itu membawa perkaranya ke Komite HAM PBB. Komite tidak menemukan pelanggaran, tetapi menyatakan di masa depan memulangkan orang ke tempat yang tidak layak huni akibat perubahan iklim bisa melanggar perjanjian.

Pertanyaan: Apakah Selandia Baru melanggar hak hidup dengan memulangkan seorang pria ke Kiribati meski ada perubahan iklim?

What happened afterwards

  • 2019-10-24: Views adopted.
  • 2020-01-07: Views published.

Sources

Open this decision in the interactive collection (compare, filter, Indonesian view, downloads).

Cite as: Institute for Migrant Rights (2026), Migration Jurisprudence from the South, version 0.1, https://theimr.org/court-decisions/d/hrc-teitiota-2020/. This page summarizes a court decision for research and advocacy; it is not legal advice.

For researchers

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The coded variables support statistical analysis in law: cross-national comparison, regression and event-history designs, and law and economics questions such as how recruitment fees, wage protection and limits on changing employer affect migrant workers. The data can be downloaded for replication.

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