Should governments be sued for the consequences of man-made climate change? That, in essence, was the question asked by law students from Pacific Island countries in 2019.
Four years later, in what could be a landmark decision, the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday asked the UN’s judicial arm, the International Court of Justice, to issue an opinion on the legal obligations of states to combat the climate change.
The ICJ opinion, while not binding, “would carry enormous legal weight and moral authority,” Vanuatu Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau said in a speech before the ICJ ruling defended by his country was adopted. More than two-thirds of the countries had signed up as sponsors of the resolution.
“We believe that the clarity it will bring can greatly benefit our efforts to address the climate crisis and could further boost global and multilateral cooperation and state behavior to address climate change,” Kalsakau said.
Pacific island nations such as Vanuatu are among the countries most vulnerable to extreme weather and sea level rise projected to occur this century as a result of higher average global temperatures. Low-lying atoll nations like Tuvalu and Kiribati are particularly at risk.
At a conference in Fiji last year, officials from 15 low-lying Pacific island nations agreed that climate change was their “greatest existential threat.”
More than 130 nations sponsored the UN resolution and several, including Indonesia, a major polluter, joined at the last minute. The world’s two biggest carbon polluters, the United States and China, rival superpowers that are vying for influence between Pacific island nations and handing out aid money to states in the vast ocean region, were not among the backers.
The resolution asks the international court to issue an advisory opinion on the obligations of governments to protect the “climate system” and the environment from global warming, which is driven by human activity.
He also wants the court to offer an opinion on what legal consequences follow from those obligations for countries that cause significant damage to the climate and the environment, particularly in relation to small island states.
An opinion from the International Court of Justice could add weight to arguments for developed nations to take more steps to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and to compensate countries hardest hit by a warmer climate.
It could also be incorporated into national laws or influence courts when considering climate change-related claims.
“If and when it is given, such a view would help the General Assembly, the UN and member states take the boldest and strongest climate action our world desperately needs,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
The last annual report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published earlier this week, said greenhouse gases released from fossil fuels and other human activities had “unequivocally caused global warming.” The average temperature between 2011 and 2020 was 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than between 1850 and 1900.
He said the increase in average surface temperature was already contributing to weather and weather extremes around the world, such as heat waves and droughts and rainfall intensity and tropical cyclones. The internationally agreed target of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius is still achievable, though time is running out, according to the report.
Kalsakau and Guterres, in their addresses to the General Assembly on Wednesday, credited the law students who provided much of the initial impetus for the ICJ opinion-seeking effort.
“We are delighted that the world has listened to the youth of the Pacific and decided to take action. From what started in a Pacific classroom four years ago,” Cynthia Houniuhi, one of the students and now president of the group, said in a statement.
A decade earlier, the Pacific island nation of Palau had indicated it would ask the General Assembly to seek an advisory opinion from the ICJ, but its initiative failed to move forward.
The 27 students, from numerous Pacific island countries, were studying law on the campus of the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila when they developed the idea, according to Lavetanalagi Seru, regional policy coordinator for the Action Network. Pacific Islands Climate based in Suva, Fiji.
They formed a civil society organization, Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, whose main goal was to convince governments to seek advisory opinion, on an issue that would develop a new international law that would combine climate change. climate change and legal obligations derived from environmental treaties and basic human rights. rights.
The effort reflected frustration that pledges made by countries to cut emissions that cause higher global temperatures were “totally insufficient,” according to the group’s campaign materials.
Seru said the Hague-based international court is likely to take two to three years to issue an opinion.
“It’s really not to place blame,” he told BenarNews, “but to strengthen the understanding of what exactly is the role of states in protecting the rights of current and future generations and what is the basic minimum that countries should do to protect those rights.
BenarNews, an online news service affiliated with Radio Free Asia (RFA), produced this report.
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