UN top court’s decision on climate change could impact global response

The U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice in 2023 for an advisory opinion, a non-binding but important basis for international obligations.

The UN’s highest court is handing down a historic opinion on climate change Wednesday, a decision that could set a legal benchmark for action around the globe to the climate crisis.

After years of lobbying by vulnerable island nations who fear they could disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice in 2023 for an advisory opinion, a non-binding but important basis for international obligations.

A panel of 15 judges was tasked with answering two questions. First, what are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? Second, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment?

“The stakes could not be higher. The survival of my people and so many others is on the line,” Arnold Kiel Loughman, attorney general of the island nation of Vanuatu, told the court during a week of hearings in December.

In the decade up to 2023, sea levels rose by a global average of around 4.3 centimetres (1.7 inches), with parts of the Pacific rising higher still. The world has also warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times because of the burning of fossil fuels.

Vanuatu is one of a group of small states pushing for international legal intervention in the climate crisis but it affects many more island nations in the South Pacific.

“The agreements being made at an international level between states are not moving fast enough,” Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s minister for climate change, told The Associated Press.

Any decision by The Hague-based court would be non-binding advice and unable to directly force wealthy nations into action to help struggling countries. Yet it would be more than just a powerful symbol, since it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits.