The Hague, July 23 (Reuters) – The UN’s highest courts will give an opinion on Wednesday that is likely to determine future climate action courses around the world.
The deliberation of 15 judges of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, known as the advisory opinion, is not legally binding. Nevertheless, it will have legal and political weights, and future climate cases will not be able to ignore it, legal experts say.
“The advisory opinion is perhaps the most important in court history, as it clarifies the international legal obligation to avoid catastrophic harm that puts human survival at stake.”
At a two-week hearing last December at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, Ahavan represents a small, lowland island state facing existential threats from rising sea levels.
Overall, over 100 states and international organizations expressed their opinions on two questions the UN General Assembly asked the judges to consider.
They are: What is the obligation of a country under international law to protect its climate from greenhouse gas emissions? And what are the legal consequences of countries that are harmful to the climate system?
The wealthy countries in the Global North said the existing climate treaties, including the 2015 Paris Agreement, are the grounds for determining liability, with the almost non-binding existing climate treaties.
Developing countries and small island states advocated for stronger measures, in some cases legally binding emissions, and financial aid to the largest emitter of climate-warming greenhouse gases.
The Paris Agreement and litigation spike
In 2015, at the end of the UN talks in Paris, over 190 countries committed to pursuing efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
The agreement fails to curb the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Late last year, in a recent “Emissions Gap Report,” by taking on the country’s commitment to tackling climate change compared to what is needed, the UN said current climate policy would lead to global warming of over 3C (5.4F), more than 2,100 pre-industrial levels.
So far, the results have been mixed.
According to June figures from the Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, climate-related lawsuits have been tightened when campaigners try to consider businesses and governments, with roughly 3,000 lawsuits being filed in 60 countries.
A German court in May abandoned the case between Peruvian farmers and German energy giant RWE RWEG.DE, but his lawyers and environmentalists said the 10-year-old case was still a victory for a climate case that could promote similar lawsuits.
Earlier this month, the American Human Rights Court, which holds more jurisdiction than 20 Latin American and the Caribbean, said in a separate advisory opinion that members must work together to tackle climate change.
Actors say the court’s opinion on Wednesday should be a turning point and should provide for a decision that, even if the ruling itself is advice, violated international laws signed to support UN member states.
“The court can assert that climate omissions, particularly by major emitters, are not merely policy failures, but rather a violation of international law,” said Fijian Vishal Prasad, who was one of the law students who lobbyed with the South Pacific Vanuatu government to file a lawsuit against the ICJ.
It is theoretically possible to ignore the ICJ ruling, but lawyers say the state is generally reluctant to do so.
“This opinion applies binding international law that the state has already committed to. National and regional courts will consider this opinion as a compelling authority, which will inform a judgment that will result in binding consequences under its own legal system.”
The court will begin reading opinions at 3pm (1300 GMT).
(Reporting by Stephanie Van Den Berg, Additional Report by Ali Wizards of Copenhagen, Edited by Barbara Lewis)
