Tuvalu’s Sinking Future Offers Lessons for South Sudan

(Juba) – As the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu faces the prospect of disappearing beneath rising seas, its call for a global treaty on sea level rise is resonating far beyond its own shores. At the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference held in France this month, Tuvalu’s Prime Minister, Feleti Teo, urged world leaders to adopt a legal framework to protect the rights, borders, and identity of countries at risk of being submerged by climate change.

Tuvalu, with its highest point only 4.6 metres above sea level, is sounding the alarm on behalf of all low-lying island nations. Scientists warn that by 2100, up to 95% of Tuvalu could be submerged during high tides. The country’s appeal for an international treaty includes protections for statehood, maritime borders, and the citizenship rights of displaced populations, raising urgent questions for the international community about what happens when a nation’s physical land disappears.

The proposed treaty would ensure continuity of citizenship, national recognition, and border rights even after land loss. This would prevent statelessness, an issue with direct relevance to South Sudan, which only became independent in 2011 after decades of civil war and stateless displacement. While South Sudan’s existential threat is not from the sea, its ongoing challenges of internal displacement, refugee flows, and climate-driven flooding mirror aspects of Tuvalu’s crisis.

Tuvalu has already signed a historic bilateral agreement with Australia known as the Falepili Union. Signed in November 2023, it guarantees Tuvalu’s sovereignty and statehood even if it becomes uninhabitable. The treaty also commits Australia to working with Tuvalu on climate adaptation and potential relocation. Tuvalu is also exploring digital preservation through a “metaverse nation” to archive its culture and history online—a move as symbolic as it is practical.

These bold actions serve two purposes. First, they highlight the urgency of the crisis—Tuvalu’s fate is not a distant possibility but a likely reality within this century. Second, they ensure that Tuvaluan identity and rights are protected even if the island vanishes physically.

Tuvalu is not alone. Other low-lying countries such as the Maldives, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands face similar threats. Many of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS), a coalition of 39 countries and 18 territories representing over 65 million people—are already watching their land erode, their freshwater turn salty, and their populations face relocation.

In Kiribati, two islands disappeared beneath the sea in 1999. In the Solomon Islands, five uninhabited islands have vanished, and the capital of Choiseul Province, Taro, may need to relocate due to its 2-metre elevation. In each case, disappearing land not only means displaced people but also the potential loss of maritime territory and economic resources.

That raises serious legal questions. Currently, maritime boundaries are measured from coastlines or the outermost reefs and islands. As these vanish, the absence of a legal framework could spark disputes over exclusive economic zones, fishing rights, and offshore resource claims. Without an international agreement recognizing permanent maritime boundaries, even after islands are lost, countries could find their waters vulnerable to foreign exploitation.

For South Sudan, a landlocked nation, these maritime concerns may seem far removed. Yet, the broader lessons on environmental displacement, international law, and sovereignty are deeply relevant. The country continues to face mass internal displacement due to flooding, drought, and conflict. With climate shocks already pushing communities off ancestral land and into new regions, South Sudanese policymakers could draw from Tuvalu’s forward-thinking approach to identity and protection under extreme environmental threat.

Tuvalu’s call for a global sea level rise treaty reflects an understanding that climate change is not only about science and carbon. It’s about legal rights, citizenship, and survival. It proposes global safeguards before disaster, not after. South Sudan, a young country still shaping its place in international law, can support and learn from this proposal as it strengthens its own protections for those displaced by climate and conflict.