The students behind the historic ICJ climate ruling

So my name is Cynthia who Nuhi. I am from Solomon Islands. I think I was around eight to ten when I could see the world more clearly and I started noticing sea level rise.

Cynthia Hanuhi knew about the climate crisis before she had a word for it. As a kid, she would travel with her dad to the outlining Fanalay Island to visit her family. There she saw empty, stilled houses sitting above the water.

I liked asking questions and my dad was a very patient man, and he told me about how the people have had to move inland because the sea level was coming in. And the more I asked, the more I wanted to find out. And the more I found out this changes are happening not because something that the people's in the islands that are way far from the outside world, so remote. It's not because of their owndoing. They contribute almost nothing to this. But they are the ones that you know, get.

To loose their homes these days. Finally is quiet. Around eighty percent of houses are abandoned, freshwater wells have been inundated with salt water, and vegetables no longer grow in the soil. Watching the slow destruction of her family's ancestral home by man made climate change, Cynthia was motivated to act. Cynthia's six year fight took her all the way to the Hague and the International Court of Justice, where a

Yeah, So, Cynthia, from those early experiences of seeing her relatives' houses literally falling into the sea, she described it as something that really motivated her to do something that could help her people in a practical way, and that led her to enroll in a law degree at the University of the South Pacific. So she ended up moving from the Solomon Islands to Port Vila, the capital of Vanawatu, where the campus was. From there she ended up in a course on environmental law.

We went in bright eyed, you know, ready to be inspired. But the more we learn, the more frustrating it became that the mechanism the climate change regime that's in place is not reflective of the urgency of the matter for our people, especially all of us came from online communities, and so you have difference from Tonga, Fiji, some more Kiribas, all the others coming together to walk together towards a solution.

So what was really concerning to them was they were seeing firsthand how the law was failing to recognize climate harms that are having impacts on smaller nations who have very little political power on the world stage to do anything about it. It's in the context of this that they started to learn about this thing called an advisory opinion.

Can you explain what an advisory opinion is?

Yes, So, an advisory opinion is delivered by the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which is connected to the UN, and one of its functions is dispensing these advisory opinions that aim to clarify some of the most

In the Pacific, we've always had this worldview where when there's uncertainty in terms of customs or culture, we go to our chiefs and what they say in clarity how many to our people. That's the same worldview we'd like to present here in terms of the icc because we're missing that secret authority that can clarify and set the basis.

Now, the ICJ is actually never given an advisory opinion on climate change before, but in twenty twelve, the you know, tiny Pacific nation of Palout initially had this idea of going to the ICJ to seek an advisory opinion about what the responsibilities are from the biggest polluters towards the

Okay, so tell me about it. How did they go about that?

So, to start with, they formed an advocacy group called the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, of which Cynthia became the president, and they began this massive letter writing campaign. They wrote to the heads of state of a bunch of different countries. They even sent a letter to former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and probably not a surprise to know they didn't get the response that they wanted.

Initially, we waited and we waited and waited and waited and waited, and to a point where we thought, okay, let us must have just gone to the out box.

Those were really hard days because there was a lot of criticism and you know, people telling us off that this is impossible, it's not going to go. But then one country came back with very compelling positive response, and that is the Republic of Vanuatu.

So the first person to take their initiative seriously was the then Foreign Minister of Vaniwatu, Ralph Frankenfarnu. He was a former law student from that campus himself, and he recalled being really impressed by their initiative. And from there the idea was taken on by the Republic of Vaniwatu's government.

Right, so they've got the support of one country, but you need more than that to get an issue in front of the General Assembly.

Right yes, So in order to get something referred to the International Court of Justice, you need a majority vote, So you need ninety three countries minimum to support a question to be referred to the ICJ. So the first step of the Vadawatu government was to take it to the Pacific Islands Forum. This happens every year. Australia and New Zealand are part of the negotiations there. Even that alone took nearly three or four years to be fully endorsed by the Pacific Islands Forum and then from there

Once it was there, a record number of countries lined up to have their say. After the break, the judges make their ruling about what we owe our smaller neighbors feeling the impact of climate change. Okay, so what did the International Court of Justice find and what did they rule?

So the question put to the ICJ was, you know, asking them to clarify what are the obligations between bigger polluting states towards smaller states in regards to protecting them from climate change.

Climate change pauses are quintessentially universal risk to austics.

And the Interctual Court of Justice spelled out for the first time that the failure of larger polluting states to protect smaller states from climate harms could be backed up by legal consequences.

The Court found that countries fail to take measures to prevent climate change, they could be in violation of international law and the countries.

It goes on to explain that failures could be including things such as still producing fossil fuels, still consuming fossil fuels, still granting exploration licenses, or offering subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.

One of the things this does is clear the way for countries to actually sue each other over their emissions and contributions to climate change, even for historic emissions.

What this does is it gives these smaller nations power that they didn't have before. It gives them leverage in negotiations, and it forces bigger nations to come to the table and agree to more ambitious climate policy because now there's the threat of consequences if they fail to do so.

And given all that, how could this impact Australia.

It could have massive impacts on Australia in a number of different ways.

Definitely. One of the options is litigation against Australia. Possibly according to what Ralph.

Frank Andvarannu, who's now the Minister for Climate Change Adaptation in the Republic of Anawatu. He actually went on the ABC the morning the ruling was delivered and spelled out really plainly that future litigation against Australia is now one of the options on the table.

To the Advisory pin and handed out today.

Australia is committing internationally wrong for acts because it is sponsoring, it is subsidizing fossil fuel production and excessive emissions.

I mean Australia is one of these.

So not only does that leave Australia open to future litigation, but it could influence cases that are already happening here at the moment too.

So tell me a little bit more about that. Because this decision comes just after another high profile climate decision where traditional owners from the Torres Strait went to the Federal Court of Australia and argued that the government had a duty of care to protect their homelands from climate change. The judge found the government didn't have an obligation, but acknowledged the impact of climate change. So what impact could this ruling have on that case and others like it?

I mean, if we look back on that case, the judge found that the government didn't have an obligation, not because there wasn't a moral reason to protect the Torres Strait Islanders, but because the current legal framework didn't allow for it, and that's changed now. That's what doctor Wesley

So, Shane, this is a huge victory for the group of law students who first came up with this idea way back in twenty nineteen. How do they feel about the outcome.

I speak to Cynthia just after the advisory opinion was delivered, and she told me she was happily exhausted.

It's going to be emotional, I think emotional fust because it's been six long years.

So even though this is a massive victory, I mean, they've been doing this in a volunteer capacity now for six years, and as excited as they are, I think they're also really looking forward to having some rest.

I think it's cost us our youth. We've seen things the young people in our shoes, but not normally do. So we've grown with this campaign and so be emotional all that reason.

One of the things Cynthia really stressed to me when I was speaking to her is that this advisory opinion, it doesn't solve the climate crisis, obviously, but their best hope was that it would give the next batch of campaigners, you know, a blueprint for going forward, and that's exactly what they've done.

I think my motivision has always been my islands, my people. I love my people in my islands. I don't think I've been born as Solomon Islander for a mistake. I was to be a Solomon Island because those are the people that really really need our help.

Shane, thank you so much for your time.

Thanks.

Daniel, A spokesperson for Australia's Minister for Climate Change and Energy, said the government is carefully considering the court's options. Also in the news, more than one hundred international aid organizations and human rights groups have warned of mass starvation in the Gaza Strip as the Israeli militaries is it's starting