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Can Nations Be Sued for Weak Climate Action? We’ll Soon Get an Answer. [1]
['Somini Sengupta']
Date: 2023-03-29
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said the move “would assist the General Assembly, the U.N. and member states to take the bolder and stronger climate action that our world so desperately needs.”
In essence, with this resolution, the world’s nations are asking the International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, to issue an opinion on whether governments have “legal obligations” to protect people from climate hazards and, more crucially, whether failure to meet those obligations could bring “legal consequences.”
The international court’s opinion would not be binding. But, depending on what it says, it could potentially turn the voluntary pledges that every country has made under the Paris climate accord into legal obligations under a range of existing international statutes, such as those on the rights of children or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That could, in turn, lay the groundwork for new legal claims. (A few national courts have already relied in part on international law to rule in favor of climate activists’ lawsuits.)
The United Nations resolution is among a raft of legal and diplomatic volleys aimed at big emitter nations. It began when a group of law students from Pacific Island nations proposed asking the International Court of Justice whether existing international law could be used to protect future generations.
A similar idea had been floated years ago by the Marshall Islands and Palau. But it went nowhere because of opposition from powerful countries. (The United States has authority over the defense of both.)
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/climate/united-nations-vanuatu.html
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