The Tuvalu archipelago will be digitally replicated in order to have a perspective of virtual continuity in the event of submersion by the waters, according to our partner
The Conversation
.
The creation of a virtual double of the monarchy of the Pacific aims to sensitize the world on the vital danger incurred by Tuvalu and to ensure a support of cultural attachment and legal survival in case the worst should occur.
This analysis was conducted by
Géraldine Giraudeau
, professor of public law at the Universities of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and Paris-Saclay.
On the occasion of COP27, Simon Kofe, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tuvalu, announced the creation of a digital replica of his country, thus offering him the prospect of virtual continuity in the event of submersion by the waters.
Uploading this Polynesian archipelago to the Metaverse is to be done in stages, with a 3D reproduction of the lands, waters surrounding them and elements of Tuvalu's cultural life.
For now, the site hosting the project offers a representation of Teafualiku, its smallest island.
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Announcement of the creation of a duplicate of Tuvalu in the metaverse
The nations of the Pacific are on the front line of the effects of climate change even though they contribute to it in a negligible way (less than 0.03% of greenhouse gas emissions) and their economic resources to deal with it are limited.
They have been warning for years about the threat that the phenomenon poses to their survival.
The creation of a virtual duplicate of the monarchy of the Pacific pursues two objectives.
The first is to sensitize the world on the vital danger incurred by Tuvalu because of climate change;
the second is to provide support for cultural attachment and legal survival in case the worst should occur.
This last dimension raises many questions.
Warning about the effects of climate change
In Oceania, the multiple consequences of climate change are already very real and documented.
They illustrate how the climate crisis is first and foremost a human rights crisis, hampering the enjoyment of cultural rights and also threatening the rights to food, education, health, protection of the family, and even in life.
These upheavals have already led to multiple internal relocations, such as in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji or Vanuatu.
They also make it necessary to anticipate international population movements, in particular for the Atollian States, like Tuvalu, but also Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, or Tokelau (special territory of New Zealand): these territories entirely composed of low coral formations are likely to disappear under water within a few decades.
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"Nations of Water" is a documentary film on the issue of law and climate change in the Pacific
An unprecedented legal scenario
However, if States have already ceased to exist due to military and political circumstances, they have never ceased to exist because their territory had disappeared.
This scenario raises unprecedented legal questions.
In reality, the rise of water being a progressive phenomenon, a territory becomes uninhabitable before being engulfed by the ocean.
In the case of the Atoll States, it is all the inhabitants who could be required to move.
A perspective all the less fanciful that these populations are reduced in number (Tuvalu has about 12,000 inhabitants).
Various uncertainties arise from this projection.
First, there is the question of the survival of the state itself.
According to international law, a state entity is composed of three elements: a territory, a population and a government.
The displacement of the entire population of a State therefore causes the first deficiency of this triptych, the disappearance of the territory a second.
In such a case, the government would at least be forced into exile.
So what would happen to these state entities?
Could they continue to exist legally and still be represented on the international scene?
Could they, for example, retain their status as a member state of the United Nations?
The situation of people is no clearer.
Would the nationals of the State whose territory had become uninhabitable or had disappeared continue to have the same nationality?
How could they assert their rights?
Finally, it would also be necessary to answer the important question of whether the recognition of sovereign powers over maritime areas could remain.
Indeed, the law of the sea as codified and developed in the Montego Bay Convention provides for the exercise of powers related to the exploration and exploitation of resources in the exclusive economic zone, up to 200 nautical miles from baselines, as well as on the continental shelf.
In Oceania, the geographical configuration means that the land/sea ratio for the island states is unique in the world, and that these confetti of land are in fact immense maritime nations (the EEZ of Tuvalu is a textbook case with more than 756,000 km2 for 30 km2 of land, or 27,000 times the land area of the state).
To what extent could one reverse the legal postulate according to which the land dominates the sea, and consider that profits could continue to be drawn from the maritime spaces surrounding the former terrestrial territory?
Numerous hypotheses of “territorialized” or “ex-situ” states have already fueled the research of internationalists.
The purchase of land in Fiji by Kiribati, for example, illustrated the possibility of external relocation of the population (this land would have finally been converted into agricultural exploitation, with the support of China).
These projections, whose concrete obstacles remain difficult to ignore, mobilize the imagination of lawyers.
The creation of a digital double of the States constitutes yet another new track.
Virtual support for the continuity of the State
Should we then consider the double role of the state in the metaverse as a new support for its existence?
Could territoriality and sovereignty also be virtual?
The metaverse, a somewhat vague concept promoted by Internet giants, has the particularity of offering a virtual world within which three-dimensional avatars would have their own existence.
Some institutions have already yielded to it, like the city of Seoul or Barbados, which have announced that they will recreate part of their administrative services there for the first and diplomatic for the second.
The Tuvalu project is innovative in that it proposes to download the entire state, in both its spatial and cultural dimensions.
This digital projection would not create rights – except possibly in the metaverse itself.
Nevertheless, in the real world, it could support the survival of a deterritorialized state, giving it a certain materiality.
However, the terms of this legal continuity remain to be specified.
They are the subject of numerous reflections, particularly within the UN's International Law Commission.
The Virtual State was also presented by Minister Kofe as a means for Tuvaluans and their descendants to one day be able to immerse themselves in the aesthetic, biological and cultural richness of their country, by wearing 3D glasses.
Building a virtual world can seem frightening in itself, it becomes tragic when it comes to uploading a world on the verge of disappearing forever from physical reality.
Recent developments, such as support for Vanuatu's campaign to seek an opinion from the International Court of Justice on climate change and human rights, are signs of growing recognition of the situation of small states islanders in the face of climate change.
OUR “GLOBAL WARMING” FILE
The creation during COP27 of a fund for loss and damage – certainly existing but not yet endowed and for which the list of beneficiary countries has not been decided – can also be underlined.
The fate of nations like that of Tuvalu nevertheless depends on much more concrete and immediate actions, so urgent is the need to save them.
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