The UN’s highest court will begin unprecedented climate hearings

The world’s highest court will begin unprecedented hearings next week geared toward finding a “legal blueprint” for a way countries should protect the environment from harmful greenhouse gases – and what the results will be in the event that they don’t.

From Monday, lawyers and representatives of greater than 100 countries and organizations will file complaints before the International Court of Justice in The Hague – the most important number in history.

Activists hope that the legal opinion of the ICJ judges will have far-reaching consequences within the fight against climate change.

But others fear that the U.N.-backed request for a non-binding advisory opinion will have limited impact and will take months and even years for the U.N.’s top court to issue a ruling.

The Peace Palace hearings come days after a fiercely negotiated climate agreement on the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan, which stated that developed countries must contribute a minimum of $300 billion a yr to climate finance by 2035.

Poorer countries sharply criticized the commitment from wealthy polluters as insultingly low, and the ultimate agreement made no mention of a world commitment to phase out planet-warming fossil fuels.

“No Distant Threat”

Last yr, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution during which it addressed two key inquiries to the judges of the ICJ.

First, what obligations did states have under international law to guard the Earth’s climate system from greenhouse gas emissions?

Second, what are the legal consequences of those obligations where states “through their actions and omissions have caused significant damage to the climate system and other parts of the environment?”

The second query was also related to the obligation of states for damage caused to small, more vulnerable countries and their populations.

This was very true for countries in danger from rising sea levels and more severe weather in places just like the Pacific Ocean.

“Climate change is not a distant threat to us,” said Vishal Prasad, director of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

“It’s changing our lives right now. Our islands are at risk. “Our communities are facing disruptive change at a pace and scale unlike any previous generation,” Prasad told reporters a couple of days before the hearings began.

Launching a campaign in 2019 to take the climate issue to the International Court of Justice, Prasad’s group of 27 students led a consensus amongst Pacific island nations, including his native Fiji, before it was presented to the UN.

Last yr, the General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ.

“Legal Plan”

Joie Chowdhury, a senior staff attorney on the U.S.-Switzerland-based Center for International Environmental Law, said climate advocates didn’t expect the ICJ opinion “to provide very specific answers.”

Instead, she predicted that the court would present “a legal model on the basis of which more detailed issues can be resolved,” she added.

The judges’ opinion, which she expected next yr, “will be the basis for climate litigation at the domestic, national and international levels.”

“One of the really important issues, because it determines all legal issues, is what conduct is illegal,” Chowdhury said.

“This is crucial to these proceedings,” she said.

Some of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters – including the world’s three largest greenhouse gas emitters, China, the United States and India – will be amongst some 98 countries and 12 organizations and groups that will submit entries.

On Monday, proceedings will open with an announcement from Vanuatu and the Melanesian Spearhead Group, which also represents the vulnerable island states of Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, in addition to Indonesia and East Timor.

Organizations including the EU and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are resulting from present their submissions at the top of the two-week hearings.

“With this advisory opinion, we are not here just to talk about what we are afraid of losing,” said PISFCC’s Prasad.

“We are here to talk about what we can protect and what we can build if we work together,” he said.

© 2024 AFP