Paris climate agreement not enough to protect oceans, court rules

A group of small island states, including Antigua and Barbuda and the Bahamas, secured a victory over climate change in an international court on Tuesday as they seek to combat rising sea levels.

In its first climate-related judgment, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) said greenhouse gas emissions absorbed by the ocean are considered marine pollution and countries are obliged to protect marine environments by going further than than required by the Paris climate agreement.

The opinion was requested by a group of nine island nations facing climate change-related sea level rises.

The opinion is not legally binding, but it could help guide countries in their climate policy and could be used in other cases as a legal precedent.

“The ITLOS opinion will inform our future legal and diplomatic work to end the inaction that has brought us to the brink of irreversible disaster,” said Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne.

The other nations in the group that took the case to court were Tuvalu, Palau, Niue, Vanuatu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

The court said states are legally obliged to take all necessary measures to achieve the goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas.

At September hearings, China, the world's biggest carbon polluter, challenged the islands' request, arguing that the court does not have general authority to issue advisory opinions. Beijing said its stance was taken to prevent the fragmentation of international law.

“If ITLOS understands that such an obligation exists, Beijing’s response would likely be to characterize this as outside its proper scope of authority,” said Ryan Martinez Mitchell, a law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Eselealofa Apinelu, representative of the South Pacific island of Tuvalu, said the opinion clarifies the legally binding obligations of all States to protect the marine environment and States against the existential threats posed by climate change.

“This is a historic moment for small island developing nations in their call for climate justice, an important first step towards holding major polluters accountable, for the benefit of all humanity,” said Apinelu.

Climate activists and lawyers said the decision could also influence two future legal opinions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice – which are also considering states' climate obligations.

Last month, the European Court of Human Rights issued a landmark ruling in favor of plaintiffs who argued that Switzerland was violating their human rights by not doing enough to combat climate warming.

“We now have clarity on what states are required to do, what they have failed to do over 30 years… but this is the opening chapter,” Payam Akhavan, lead lawyer for the nine island nations in the case, said of the ITLOS opinion, adding that the next step was to ensure that major polluters met their obligations.