LONDON — A landmark hearing into nation-states' legal obligations over climate change wrapped up at the United Nations' top court in The Hague on Friday. The outcome could have implications for the fight against climate change — and for the big polluters blamed for emitting most greenhouse gases.
The 15 judges at the International Court of Justice have heard evidence from 99 countries and dozens of organizations over the course of the two-week hearing.
They are trying to determine the legal obligations of states to tackle climate change and to repair the harm caused.
The judges' advisory opinion is expected to be published next year.
Emotional testimony
The testimony has at times been technical – but also impassioned and emotional. Small island states have argued their existence is at stake and so international human rights laws must apply to climate change.
"For young people, the demand for reparations is crucial for justice. We have inherited a planet in decline and face the grim prospect of passing on an even more degraded world to future generations," said Vishal Prasad, campaign director for Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, which lobbied for the case to be heard.
“Equally clear is the demand for immediate cessation. If greenhouse gas emissions are not stopped, we are not just risking our future, we are welcoming its demise,” he said.
Polluters
Countering that argument were several big polluting nations, including China, India, Britain and the United States. They argued that only climate treaties, such as the 2015 Paris Agreement, confer any legal obligations on nation-states regarding climate change.
"An advisory proceeding is not the means to litigate whether individual states or groups of states have violated obligations pertaining to climate change in the past or bear responsibility for reparations, as some participants have suggested," legal adviser to the U.S. State Department, Margaret L. Taylor, told the court on December 4.
"It's a suggestion … that some, but not all, states are entitled, as a matter of international law, to reparations simply upon a showing that the climate system has been harmed. We do not see a basis for such a conclusion," Taylor added.
Island states
The U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory ruling after years of lobbying from small island and vulnerable coastal states, which argue that rising sea levels due to global warming pose an existential threat. The judges' opinion will not be legally binding, but analysts say it will carry legal weight and could influence future climate negotiations.
Youth climate groups have led the campaign at the U.N., and several attended the hearings in The Hague. Many campaigners were optimistic as the two-week hearing closed Friday.
"We came here hoping that at the end of it all, we shall get a favorable advisory opinion,” ," said Kenyan lawyer Brenda Reson Sapuro, who represented the group World's Youth for Climate Justice at the hearing. “And we still stand hopeful because we have told our stories. We have told our stories from our heart. We've spoken of our experiences, and we believe that the law is also on our side.”
What happens next?
The ICJ's advisory opinion may simply reiterate existing climate deals such as the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to Renatus Otto Franz Derler, a climate law expert and editor-in-chief of the Cambridge International Law Journal.
"[Or] a second intermediate outcome would be that states have an obligation to fight climate change. The conduct that they're doing, for example the petrostates, is in breach of general international law, so therefore state responsibility would apply," Derler told VOA.
Petrostates are countries that are heavily dependent on the export of oil and natural gas.
The judges may instead issue a much more ambitious advisory, "in terms of saying that, yes, states cause climate change, it is a breach of international law, and therefore states are obligated to pay financial compensation and cessation of all these harmful activities," Derler said.
He added that such an outcome would likely lead to further legal uncertainties over how and where such compensation claims would be heard.
