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Cardozo Law Review

Abstract

This Article examines how climate change and Puerto Rico’s territorial status operate as mutually reinforcing constraints on the archipelago’s right to self-determination. While Puerto Rico is highly exposed to intensifying climate impacts, its status as an unincorporated U.S. territory limits its ability to respond, resulting in federal control over fiscal policy, disaster recovery, and economic regulation, as well as exclusion from international climate finance mechanisms. Together, these structural limitations create a “climate-colonial feedback loop” in which environmental harm deepens political and economic dependency, further undermining adaptive capacity and autonomous development. The Article advances a two-part analysis. First, it demonstrates how Puerto Rico’s constitutional and economic subordination compounds climate vulnerability through delayed disaster aid, austerity-driven underinvestment in infrastructure, and exclusion from global loss-and-damage frameworks. Second, the Article situates these dynamics within the evolving international law of self-determination, focusing on the International Court of Justice’s 2025 Advisory Opinion on climate change. Although the Court stops short of establishing direct liability, it links States’ environmental obligations with the material preconditions necessary for the enjoyment of collective rights, including self-determination. Building on this framework, the Article contends that climate change can function as an external constraint on self-determination when major emitting States fail to exercise due diligence, particularly where those States also exercise political control over affected populations. Puerto Rico thus emerges as a critical site for reimagining self-determination as a dynamic, climate-responsive right in the twenty-first century.

Disciplines

Constitutional Law | Environmental Law

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