The UN General Assembly on Wednesday (29 March) adopted by consensus and to cheers a resolution calling for the world body’s top court to outline legal obligations related to climate change.

Pushed for years by Vanuatu and Pacific islander youth, the measure asks the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to lay out nations’ obligations for protecting Earth’s climate, and the legal consequences they face if they don’t.

“Together, you are making history,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, emphasizing that even if non-binding, an opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ)“would assist the General Assembly, the UN and member states to take the bolder and stronger climate action that our world so desperately needs.”

The resolution asks the ICJ to clarify the “obligations of states under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system.”

Climate justice and cooperation

The UN chief stressed that now is the time for climate action and climate justice.

“The climate crisis can only be overcome through cooperation – between peoples, cultures, nations, generations. But festering climate injustice feeds divisions and threatens to paralyze global climate action,” he warned.

The Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau, said ambition towards achieving the 1.5-degree target “is still far from what is needed”, and an ICJ advisory opinion could provide clarity that would benefit global efforts to address the climate crisis and further boost cooperation.

He said the final text of the resolution was the result of lengthy consultations and deliberations, and he also highlighted the important role played by young law students in the Pacific who inspired the initiative.
No ‘silver bullet’

“The intense and engaged negotiations with the core group as well as with a broader UN membership, were an indication of the importance of this initiative, but also of the collective desire to work towards addressing the climate crisis,” he said.

“This is not a silver bullet, but it can make an important contribution to climate change, climate action, including by catalyzing much higher ambition under the Paris Agreement,” he added, referring to the 2015 global treaty on climate change.
A ‘landmark resolution’

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, issued a statement warmly welcoming the “landmark resolution”.

An ICJ advisory opinion “could be an important catalyst for the urgent, ambitious, and equitable climate action that is needed to stop global heating and to limit and remediate climate-induced human rights harms,” he said.

He also welcomed the resolution’s “clear recognition of the relevance of action today for the generations to come”.  

The UN rights chief said his Office, OHCHR, has extensively documented the human rights impacts of climate change and set out the human rights obligations of States and other actors.

“States have obligations to mitigate and adapt to – and address loss and damage resulting from – climate change,” said Mr. Türk. “We look forward to sharing this expertise in this highly significant process before the International Court of Justice.”

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