Vanuatu's 'epic' win lets top U.N. court set climate obligations

The tiny archipelago nation of Vanuatu and a core group of nations persuaded the U.N. General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice for an unprecedented legal opinion spelling out the consequences of climate inaction.

What began as a campaign by Pacific Island students in a law school classroom is now set to go to the United Nations' highest court. The action coincided with two hearings in the European Court of Human Rights on the first two of three cases challenging nations to do more to curb their greenhouse gas emissions.

The 193-nation assembly, meeting at the U.N.'s global headquarters in New York, approved a resolution by acclamation on Wednesday. Its passage reflects the climate crisis that is hitting hard in the Pacific nation and other low-lying islands.

“Today we have witnessed a win for climate justice of epic proportions,” said Vanuatu's Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau.

"Vanuatu sees today’s historic resolution as the beginning of a new era in multilateral climate cooperation," he said, "one that is more fully focused on upholding the rule of international law and an era that places human rights and intergenerational equity at the forefront of climate decision-making.”

The resolution asks the ICJ, based in The Hague, to provide an opinion that would for the first time detail nations' legal obligations to reduce carbon emissions and take other measures to fight global warming. It also would provide answers about what nations owe each other when they cause climate harm.

The legal obligations stem from a host of laws and treaties such as the 2015 Paris Agreement in which nations agreed to limit global warming to 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, or 1.5° C. if possible, by submitting carbon-cutting plans.

Questions such as these should have been answered long ago, according to Vanuatu's Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu, who said two weeks ago that nations have "short-sighted and economically-driven policies" that give short shrift to what's needed to combat climate change.

However, the resolution is not intended to name and shame other countries, he said, but to provide legal clarity.

"Vanuatu's people suffer from the insidious rise in sea levels that eats away at our villages, ocean acidification that is dissolving our reefs, increasing sea surface temperatures bleaching our corals and sea grasses, landslides that erase entire villages and plantations, and prolonged droughts that shrivel and kill our subsistence crops before they can even be harvested," Regenvanu said. "This climate suffering is being experienced right now."

Earlier this month, Vanuatu, one of the most disaster-prone countries, declared a state of emergency after two Category 4 cyclones hit the capital, Port Vila, causing flooded streets, power outages and homes without their corrugated iron roofs. A day later, a 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck.

Nonbinding, but influential

The resolution, spearheaded by Vanuatu since 2021, grew out of a project started by law school students at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. Four years ago, the students decided that an ICJ advisory opinion could advance international climate law, and began trying to get the backing of their governments.

Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network, called the U.N. resolution's adoption "a truly historic moment in our quest for stronger accountability and actions from governments in addressing climate change."

"The work has only just begun," said Lavetanalagi Seru, regional policy coordinator for Pacific Islands Climate Action Network, "and the road to The Hague requires everyone to push their governments to make submissions that highlight the clear linkages between the climate crisis and human rights when called on by the court."

The core supporters of the resolution – which had 132 co-sponsors – were Angola, Antigua & Barbuda, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Germany, Liechtenstein, Micronesia, Morocco, Mozambique, New Zealand, Portugal, Romania, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Uganda, Vanuatu and Vietnam.

It says nations bear legal obligations not only under the Paris climate treaty but also under a range of international laws and treaties: the Charter of the United Nations; International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The ICJ's advisory opinions are nonbinding on national courts, but a climate opinion could serve as influential precedent that could be cited in international negotiations and lawsuits.

The resolution's questions for the court avoided singling out for blame any of the industrialized nations that produced most of the global carbon emissions.

China and the United States, the two biggest polluters, did not block the resolution, reflecting their competition for influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

This story has been updated with additional details.