Hague, Netherlands – The Supreme Court of the United Nations is handing over a historic opinion on climate change on Wednesday, a decision that can determine a legal benchmark for the climate crisis for action around the world.
After years of lobbying by the weaker island countries, who are afraid that they may disappear under rising sea water, the United Nations General Assembly asked the International Judicial Court in 2023 for a non-intelligent but important basis for international obligations.
A panel of 15 judges was tasked to answer two questions. First of all, what countries are obliged to do under international law to protect climate and environment from human-generated greenhouse gas emissions? Second, what are the legal results for governments when their acts, or lack of action, has caused great damage to the climate and environment?
“The bet may not be too much. My people and so many other people exist on the line,” Arnold Kail Lafman, Attorney General of Vanuatu of the island nation told the court during a week of hearing in December.
In the decade of 2023, the sea level has risen from a global average of about 4.3 cm (1.7 in), with parts of the Pacific still increased. The world has also heated 1.3 ° C (2.3 Fahrenheit) due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Vanuatu is one of a group of small states pushing for international legal intervention in climate crisis, but it affects many more island countries in South Pacific.
The Associated Press said, “An international agreements between the states are not proceeding enough.”
Any decision by the Hague-based court will be non-negotiable advice and will be unable to force rich countries in action to help the struggling countries. Nevertheless it would be more than just a powerful symbol, as it can serve as the basis of other legal functions including domestic cases.
“This makes the matter so important that it addresses the past, present and future of climate action. It is not only about future goals – it also deal with historical responsibility, as we cannot resolve the climate crisis without facing our roots,” Joi Chaudhary, a senior lawyer, Center for International Environmental Law, told AP.
Workers may bring cases against their own countries to fail to follow the decision and states can return to the International Court of Justice to keep each other in mind. Chaudhary said that whatever the judges would be used as the basis of other legal means, Chaudhary said.
Both the United States and Russia are the major petroleum-productive states, which are compulsorily opposed to the lack of emissions in the court.
An opinion for issuing a bus court is the latest in a series of legal victories for small island nations. Earlier this month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that countries have a legal duty not only to avoid environmental damage but also to protect and restore ecosystems. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that countries should better protect their people from the consequences of climate change.
In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands gave the first major legal victory for climate activists when the judges ruled that protection from the possible disastrous effects of climate change was a human right and the government’s duty to protect their citizens.
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