How young activists won a climate fight for the world
July 23 was a landmark day in the global fight for affixing legal responsibility on all nations for inaction to contain the harmful impact of climate change on people around the world. That day, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague delivered an unequivocal judgement that governments are legally accountable for failure to act in accordance with the commitments they made while pledging support to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which the Conference of Parties adopted in 2015. A panel of 15 judges gave their verdict in the form of an advisory opinion to the UN. The ICJ was responding to a referral by the UN General Assembly of a case initiated by several countries in 2023.
While this verdict cannot be enforced by the ICJ, it provides a strong legal basis for international and national litigation against governments that are lax in fulfilling their commitments towards climate change mitigation. Under international law, even countries that have not signed the Paris Agreement or have exited from it, like the US, will now be open to legal scrutiny for acts of omission and commission that run counter to the global agenda for containing climate change.
The verdict is a tribute to ICJ’s wisdom in identifying the International and inter-generational harm being caused by governments that are unresponsive to the threat of climate change. The case presents a remarkable story of how young climate activists combined audacity of imagination with astute activism at the global level, to invoke ICJ’s intervention by engaging the UN. It was initiated by law students from low-lying Pacific islands that face an imminent danger of their homes, fields and heritage being submerged by rising sea levels due to global warming.
In 2019, a law student from Solomon Islands came up with the idea of approaching the UN for legal action. Cynthia Houniuhi was alarmed at the devastation caused by climate change in her home country. She proposed the idea in a classroom discussion. Undeterred by skepticism from some adults, she persuaded law students from other Pacific islands to unite in a fight for climate justice. Under her leadership, 27 law students across the islands formed an organisation called Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).