ANTARA HALDAR
A recent ruling from the world’s highest court confirms that climate justice is evolving from a slogan into a legal standard, helping to usher in a genuinely global legal system. Equally remarkable, the case was brought by 27 Pacific Islands law students who had to defy long odds to see it through. LOS ANGELES – Although the International Court of Justice turned 80 this year, there is a sense in which it has never felt younger. In a David-versus-Goliath moment, the tiny Pacific Island state of Vanuatu recently changed international law forever by bringing the world’s most important issue before its highest court. The result is an ICJ advisory opinion on “the legal obligations of states in respect of climate change,” as requested – at Vanuatu’s urging – by the United Nations General Assembly (with 132 states co-sponsoring the resolution).
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DANI RODRIK thinks most countries have failed to capitalize on the crisis that Donald Trump has created. The questions posed to the ICJ were as simple as they were seismic: What obligations, under international law, do states have to tackle climate change? And what are the legal consequences if they fail to do so?
The ICJ’s answer was unequivocal. States have a duty to protect their citizens from climate change – a duty rooted not only in treaties like the Paris climate agreement, but also in environmental law, human-rights law, and customary international law. “Climate change,” said the court’s president, Yuji Iwasawa, speaking from the Peace Palace in The Hague, “is an urgent and existential threat of planetary proportions.” “The science is clear,” notes John Silk, the Marshall Islands’ representative to the UN, “and now the law is, too.”
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