CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016 disasters will not bring affected persons within the scope of the Refugee Convention, no hard and fast rules or presumptions of non-applicability exist. Care must be taken to examine the particular features of the case”. After further examination, the Tribunal concluded that the author did not objectively face a real risk of being persecuted if returned to Kiribati. He had not been subjected to any land dispute in the past and there was no evidence that he faced a real chance of suffering serious physical harm from violence linked to housing, land or property disputes in the future. He would be able to find land to provide accommodation for himself and his family.2 Moreover, there was no evidence to support his contention that he was unable to grow food or obtain potable water. There was no evidence that he had no access to potable water, or that the environmental conditions that he faced or would face on return were so perilous that his life would be jeopardized. For those reasons, he was not a “refugee” as defined by the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. 2.9 Regarding the Covenant, the Tribunal noted that the right to life must be interpreted broadly, in keeping with the Committee’s general comment No. 6 (1982) on the right to life. The Tribunal cited academic commentary stating that under article 6 of the Covenant, arbitrary deprivation of life involves interference that is: (a) not prescribed by law; (b) not proportional to the ends sought; and (c) not necessary in the particular circumstances of the case. 3 On that basis, the Tribunal accepted that the right to life involves a positive obligation on the part of the State to fulfil that right by taking programmatic steps to provide for the basic necessities for life. However, the author could not point to any act or omission by the Government of Kiribati that might indicate a risk that he would be arbitrarily deprived of his life within the scope of article 6. The Tribunal considered that the Government of Kiribati was active on the international stage concerning the threats posed by climate change, as demonstrated by its 2007 Programme of Action. Moreover, the author could not establish that there was a sufficient degree of risk to his life, or that of his family, at the relevant time. Quoting the Committee’s jurisprudence from Aalbersberg et al. v. Netherlands (CCPR/C/87/D/1440/2005), the Tribunal stated that under the Optional Protocol, the risk of a violation of the Covenant must be “imminent”. That means that the risk to life must be at least likely to occur. No evidence was provided to establish such imminence. The Tribunal accepted that, given the greater predictability of the climate system, the risk to the author and his family from sea level rise and other natural disasters could, in a broad sense, be regarded as more imminent than the risk posed to the life of the complainants in Aalbersberg et al. v. Netherlands. However, the risk to the author and his family still fell well short of the threshold required to establish substantial grounds for believing that they would be in danger of arbitrary deprivation of life within the scope of article 6 of the Covenant. That risk remained firmly in the realm of conjecture or surmise. There was no evidence establishing that the author’s situation in Kiribati would be so precarious that his or his family’s lives would be in danger. The Tribunal noted the testimony of the author’s wife that she feared her young children could drown in a tidal event or storm surge. However, no evidence had been provided to establish that deaths from such events were occurring with such regularity as to raise the prospect of death occurring to the author or his family members to a level rising beyond conjecture and surmise, let alone a risk that could be characterized as arbitrary deprivation of life. Accordingly, there were no substantial grounds for believing that the author or any of his family members would be in danger of a violation of their rights under article 6 of the Covenant. The Tribunal also found that there was not a substantial risk that the author’s rights under article 7 of the Covenant would be violated by his removal to Kiribati. 2.10 The author provided a copy of the decision of the Supreme Court, which denied the author’s appeal of the decision of the Tribunal on 20 July 2015. The Court considered, inter alia, that while Kiribati undoubtedly faced challenges, the author would not, if returned there, face serious harm. Moreover, there was no evidence that the Government of Kiribati was failing to take steps to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation 2 3 4 The Tribunal noted that the father of the author’s wife was negotiating with the new owner of the land where the author had been living, and that an arrangement had been made to give the father time to relocate his family to their home island in the south. The Tribunal considered that while the author would need to share the available land with other members of his kin group, it would provide him and his family with access to sufficient resources to sustain themselves to an adequate level. The Tribunal cited, inter alia, Manfred Nowak, U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary, 2nd ed. (Kiehl, NP Engel, 2005), pp. 128–129.