THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The top United Nations court will take up the largest case in its history on Monday, when it opens two weeks of hearings into what countries worldwide are legally required to do to combat climate change and help vulnerable nations fight its devastating impact.
After years of lobbying by island nations who fear they could simply disappear under rising sea waters, the UN General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice last year for an opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.”
“We want the court to confirm that the conduct that has wrecked the climate is unlawful,” Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, who is leading the legal team for the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, told The Associated Press.
In the decade up to 2023, sea levels have risen by a global average of around 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches), with parts of the Pacific rising higher still. The world has also warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times because of the burning of fossil fuels.
Vanuatu is one of a group of small states pushing for international legal intervention in the climate crisis.
“We live on the front lines of climate change impact. We are witnesses to the destruction of our lands, our livelihoods, our culture and our human rights,” Vanuatu’s climate change envoy Ralph Regenvanu told reporters ahead of the hearing.
Any decision by the court would be non-binding advice and unable to directly force wealthy nations into action to help struggling countries. Yet it would be more than just a powerful symbol since it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits.
On Sunday, ahead of the hearing, advocacy groups will bring together environmental organizations from around the world. Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change — who first developed the idea of requesting an advisory opinion — together with World Youth for Climate Justice plan an afternoon of speeches, music and discussions.
From Monday, the Hague-based court will hear from 99 countries and more than a dozen intergovernmental organizations over two weeks. It’s the largest lineup in the institution’s nearly 80-year history.
Last month at the United Nations’ annual climate meeting, countries cobbled together an agreement on how rich countries can support poor countries in the face of climate disasters. Wealthy countries have agreed to pool together at least $300 billion a year by 2035 but the total is short of the $1.3 trillion that experts, and threatened nations, said is needed.
“For our generation and for the Pacific Islands, the climate crisis is an existential threat. It is a matter of survival, and the world’s biggest economies are not taking this crisis seriously. We need the ICJ to protect the rights of people at the front lines,” Vishal Prasad, of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, told reporters in a briefing.
Fifteen judges from around the world will seek to answer two questions: What are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? And what are the legal consequences for governments where their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment?
The second question makes particular reference to “small island developing States” likely to be hardest hit by climate change and to “members of “the present and future generations affected by the adverse effects of climate change.”
The judges were even briefed on the science behind rising global temperatures by the UN’s climate change body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ahead of the hearings.
The case at the ICJ follows a number of rulings around the world ordering governments to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In May, a UN tribunal on maritime law said that carbon emissions qualify as marine pollution and countries must take steps to adapt to and mitigate their adverse effects.
That ruling came a month after Europe’s highest human rights court said that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change, in a landmark judgment that could have implications across the continent.
The ICJ’s host country of The Netherlands made history when a court ruled in 2015 that protection from the potentially devastating effects of climate change is a human right and that the government has a duty to protect its citizens. The judgment was upheld in 2019 by the Dutch Supreme Court.

DUBLIN: The incumbent center-right parties Fianna Fail and Fine Gael looked set to retain power in Ireland as vote counting in the European Union member’s general election resumed on Sunday.
With half the seats of the new 174-seat lower chamber of parliament decided since Friday’s vote, the two parties were ahead of the main opposition party, the left-wing nationalist Sinn Fein.
Fianna Fail, led by the experienced Micheal Martin, 64, won the largest vote share with 22 percent.
Fine Gael, whose leader Simon Harris, 38, is the outgoing prime minister (taoiseach), was in second place with 21 percent, while Sinn Fein was in third (19 percent).
To form a majority, a party or coalition requires at least 88 seats. At the halfway stage Fianna Fail had secured 23 seats, Fine Gael 22, and Sinn Fein 21.
Both center-right parties have repeatedly ruled out entering a coalition with Sinn Fein.
The center-left opposition parties Labour and the Social Democrats are seen by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail as the most likely junior coalition parties, according to media reports.

The Green Party was the third member of the previous coalition but its support collapsed nationwide, with all but one seat likely to be lost.
At the last general election in 2020, the pro-Irish unity Sinn Fein — the former political wing of the paramilitary Irish Republican Army — was the most popular party but could not find willing coalition partners.
That led to weeks of horse-trading, ending up with Fine Gael, which has been in power since 2011, agreeing a deal with Fianna Fail.
During the last parliamentary term, the role of prime minister rotated between the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael leaders.
The final seat numbers, which will not be confirmed until early next week, will determine whether Harris returns as taoiseach or Martin takes the role under a similar rotation arrangement.
The new parliament is due to sit for the first time on December 18, but with coalition talks likely to drag on a new government might not be formed until the new year.
Martin told reporters in Cork that there was “very little point” in discussing government formation until seats were finalized.
“I think there’s capacity to get on,” he said, when asked if there is trust between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.
Paschal Donohoe, a top Fine Gael minister in the outgoing cabinet, said there was “a chance” a government might still be formed this year.
“But we do have a lot of work to do,” Donohoe told reporters in Dublin after his own re-election to parliament.
“Overall the center has held up in Irish politics,” he said.
The three-week campaign, launched after Harris called a snap election on November 8, was dominated by rancour over housing supply and cost-of-living crises, health, public spending and the economy.
“It’s all been an anti-climax as far as I’m concerned,” Michael O’Kane, a 76-year-old semi-retired engineer, told AFP in Dublin.
“It’s more of the same. The two parties who dominated the government last time are back again... but with the (fresh coalition partners) it might be a little bit less stable,” he said.