State responsibility: UN adopts 'historic' resolution for climate justice

Ishmael Kalsakau, Prime Minister of Vanuatu, addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York, March 29, 2023. REUTERS - EDUARDO MUNOZ

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The member countries of the United Nations decided, Wednesday, March 29, to ask the International Court of Justice, the highest body of global justice, to clarify the obligations incumbent on States in the fight against climate change and better protect communities from climate-related disasters.

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It is a small idea that has gone a long way. Students in Fiji launched the initiative two years ago: asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to define countries' responsibilities for global warming for "present and future" generations. Then the government of neighboring Vanuatu decided to take the fight to the UN in 2021, gathered 130 of the 193 member countries to support a resolution at the General Assembly, recalls our correspondent in New York, Carrie Nooten.

This is how the UN General Assembly adopted Wednesday, March 29, to applause, this resolution asking international justice to clarify the "obligations" of States in the fight against climate change, officially seizing the ICJ. It must deliver its opinion by 2025.

« An epic victory for climate justice »

UN chief Antonio Guterres, who has made climate issues one of the core of his mission, has already welcomed the decision: "Together you are making history," he said. For while the court's opinions are not binding, they carry significant legal and moral weight and are often taken into account by national courts and could therefore help governments "take the bolder and stronger climate action that the world so desperately needs," the UN secretary-general stressed. Sponsoring countries hope this will push governments to accelerate their actions.

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Today we witnessed an epic victory for climate justice," said Ishmael Kalsakau, Prime Minister of Vanuatu, which was ravaged in early March by two powerful cyclones in a matter of days.

►Also listen: IPCC synthesis: inaction is no longer an option

The resolution also mentions key elements, ignored in official texts so far, such as intergenerational equity in climate change or obligations towards small island states, which are particularly threatened.

But not everyone is so enthusiastic. China and the United States, the world's two largest CO2 emitters, did not sponsor the text.

(

And with AFP)

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Read on on the same topics:

  • UN
  • Environment
  • Fiji
  • Climate change
  • Climate
  • International justice
  • Vanuatu
  • Antonio Guterres