The UN Court says that pollutants can be responsible for greenhouse gas emissions

The Republic of Vanuatu, an island nation of the South Pacific of 320,000 people, has taken a growing effort since 2021 to force the United Nations to answer one of the most crucial legal questions related to Climate change: Can contaminators be legally responsible for the damage they have caused as a result of releasing large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere?

The short response is: Yes. Fifteen judges that make up the International Court of Justice, located in the Hague in the Netherlands, issued a unanimous advisory opinion that says that countries “have a duty to avoid significant damage to the environment by acting with due diligence and using all the means at their disposal to avoid activities carried out within their jurisdiction or controlling for causing significant damage to the climate system and other parts of the environment.”

The Court also declared that existing environmental treaties, the International Law on Human Rights and participation in the United Nations force countries to do everything possible to protect the climate. Any illicit act that violates these agreements must stop immediately, followed by “complete repairs” and compensation made to the injured parties.

“Vanuatu hopes to collaborate with other states on the implementation of the Court’s decision,” said Ralph Regenvanu, Minister of Climate Change and Environment of Vanuatu, in a statement. “A victory on the highest court in the world is only the beginning. Success will depend on what happens later through coordinated efforts through diplomacy, politics, litigation and the defense of turning this moment into a true turning point.”

For Vanuatu, a country that includes 83 islands with a combined size approximately the same as Connecticut, the decision is monumental. Authorities said the country was responsible for less than 0.0004% of global cumulative greenhouse gases between 1962 and 2022, but experience disproportionate impacts on climate change.

In addition to its average temperature increase, Vanuatu is seeing more severe and intense tropical cyclones. In 2023, it was achieved by three cyclones that were 4 or more category, impacting almost 200,000 residents and cost the country more than $ 400 million in economic damage. The Western Tropical Pacific Ocean has increased from 4 to 6 inches between 1992-2020, which is particularly dangerous for the country, since it is low and vulnerable to erosion. All this, together with a greater precipitation and periods of drought, has caused the entire communities to be relocated by the Government, and anticipates that the impacts grow more severe.

“Today, the smallest countries in the world have made history,” said Vishal Prasad, student director of the Pacific Island who fight against climate change, in a statement. “The CIJ decision brings us closer to a world where governments can no longer take a blind eye to their legal responsibilities. It affirms a simple truth of climate justice: those who did the least to feed this crisis deserve protection, repairs and a future. This ruling is a line of life for the Pacific communities in the first line line.”

Although the advisory opinion is not legally binding, environmental organizations and law experts expect the ruling to establish a legal precedent for the thousands of cases of climate change worldwide that try to hold governments and larger companies that accounts for climate pollution.

“This opinion can serve as a compass for countries that are thinking about how to prioritize justice and prioritize the safety of their citizens while fulfilling international law,” said Carly Phillips, a scientist to investigate the union of scientists in question who worked with the legal teams of seven countries that presented statements to support the court requesting opinion.

The United States does not accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, but presented a written statement in March 2024 and participated in oral arguments, arguing that the members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 2015 Paris Agreement already force the signatories to address the impacts of climate change and protect them from responsibility for damage to the climate.

But Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Jotham Napat has been skeptical about the power of the UN Convention and the Paris Agreement, saying in a statement that they do not “generate the actions that the world urgently needs quickly enough.” He believes that a favorable opinion of the Court could “support vulnerable nations in obtaining climatic finance, technology and loss support.”

The court addressed this concern in his opinion and dismissed the legal argument that environmental treaties, such as the Paris Agreement, protect pollutants from responsibility. In fact, the Court emphasized that the Paris Agreement imposes strong mitigation and adaptation obligations in all parties and requires that they respond to losses and damage to climate change.

Since the United States is one of the world’s largest greenhouse gases in the world, according to international data, the decision to hold the big emitters, but President Trump could be worrying, but President Trump He withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement For the second time earlier this year.

The court called countries like the United States, saying that nations that are not part of climatic treaties, but are members of the United Nations, must comply with “equivalent obligations under customary international law.”

The impact of opinion remains to be seen. “It is likely not to have much influence in the United States,” said Maria Antonia Tigre, director of global climatic litigation at the Sabin Center for the Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

Tigre said that while the decision may not influence national judicial cases in the United States and the country cannot be sued under the decision, the real impact could be seen internationally. A court in Brazil, for example, could cite opinion in one of the 135 current cases of climate change that makes its way through its national judicial system.

The UN Court also pointed out that corporate pollutants are open to advice opinion, especially if they are based abroad on a country that is part of the UN and climatic treaties. “Countries have the obligation to put an end to unfair acts,” said Tigre. “If it is found that a country is infringed by granting permits to an oil company, it is possible that you should revoke those permits.”

Vanuatu’s representatives said the next step is to bring the decision to the UN General Assembly to seek a complete resolution to support the implementation of the decision. The opinion will be a main approach when UN countries meet in November for the next climate change conference, known as COP30, in Brazil.

• Climate change
• International Court of Justice
• United Nations
• Vanuatu