UN court will assess countries’ guilt in climate crisis – 03/29/2023 – Environment

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will assess states’ legal obligations to protect current and future generations from climate change, after countries backed a UN resolution.

The advisory opinion of the ICJ, the UN’s top legal body, can increase the risk of litigation for countries that fail to comply with existing international laws and treaties, while also guiding governments on what they should do to uphold human rights. and the environment from climate damage.

The countries passed the resolution by consensus without a vote, after a years-long campaign led by Vanuatu, a Pacific island nation at risk from rising sea levels. More than 100 countries co-sponsored the resolution, but not the United States and China, the world’s two biggest annual emitters.

Delta Merner, chief scientist of the Science Hub for Climate Dispute at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Wednesday’s decision at the UN General Assembly marked “a historic moment for international climate justice”.

The ICJ, which could take a year or more to deliver its findings, “would change the way we think about emissions responsibilities and accountability, including corporate responsibility”, and would “enhance” the legal justifications for “thousands of cases of climate litigation currently filed,” she added.

Addressing the UN, Secretary-General António Guterres said the ICJ’s opinions are “of tremendous importance and could have a lasting impact on the international legal order”, although they are not legally binding.

Support for what began as an initiative led by Vanuatu students has grown in the past year as many countries have experienced devastating extreme weather events. With emissions remaining stubbornly high, the world’s leading climate scientists have recently warned that average temperatures are likely to soon reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

While activists have taken to the courts to force governments and companies to cut emissions more quickly, officials said the ICJ opinion was not seen as a path to new prosecutions, but a way to give governments greater clarity about their responsibilities.

Ralph Regenvanu, climate change minister for Vanuatu, said the initiative “was not targeted at any state [individual]”, nor was it “intended to blame, shame or seek any judgment”.

However, experts said it could affect climate processes more directly. Lavanya Rajamani, a professor of international environmental law at the University of Oxford who supported the Vanuatu initiative, said the findings could “support national and regional climate litigation” by identifying “a standard or benchmark for what is expected of states”.

Wednesday’s decision comes months after a coalition of small island states, including Vanuatu and Antigua and Barbuda, asked another intergovernmental body for an opinion on countries’ legal obligations to protect ocean environments from climate change.

The conclusions of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea are due in 2024, before the ICJ completes its work.

Payam Akhavan, a lawyer who supports the oceans initiative, said the court’s opinion could result in legal challenges against countries, but a “more important” outcome would be to use it to pressure big polluters at COP climate summits and “put some teeth in the Paris Agreement”.

The ICJ’s work will include a particular focus on the vulnerability of small island nations to climate change. At the COP27 summit last year, countries agreed on the creation of a loss and damage fund to help the most vulnerable countries.

Regenvanu said the ICJ’s opinion could have “implications” for the creation of the fund.

Also on Wednesday, the European Court of Human Rights held a hearing in a case centered on whether Switzerland should do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to protect the rights of its citizens.

_{Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves}