Uni students succeed in Climate Change
An initiative that began as an extracurricular exercise in a USP law class in 2019 has succeeded in making an extraordinary journey to the United Nations General Assembly.
And it will soon result in the International Court of Justice determining legal issues of climate change for the first time. On March 29 (Tomorrow), the UN General Assembly will adopt a resolution requesting the International Court of Justice – the World’s Highest Court – to issue an advisory opinion on the obligations of States under international law with respect to climate change, human rights, and intergenerational equity.
The resolution is co-sponsored by 120 States which is almost twothirds of UN Members.
More than 220 civil society organisations have also written to all UN Member States urging them to support it.
The idea was first conceived by a group of USP students during a ‘learning-by-doing’ exercise in USP’s International Environmental Law course.
“Our professor challenged us to research the most progressive and ambitious climate change action that Pacific Island Leaders could initiate in international legal processes, and once we had chosen it, to lobby our leaders to take it forward,” said Cynthia Houniuhi, one of the original class members who is now president of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).
When the 2019 Pacific Island Forum (PIF) Leaders only ‘noted’ the proposal, the students didn’t give up, but instead formed an organisation – Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change PISFCC – to start.
“An opinion from the International Court of Justice on climate change will have far-reaching impacts on policies and court decisions all around the world”, said Dr Morsen Mosses, senior kecturer in Public International Law and International Human Rights Law at USP’s Emalus Campus in Vanuatu.
“It will mean that the full suite of international laws, including the human rights covenants and principles of customary international law, are brought squarely into play in determining how States must implement their commitments under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.
“We weren’t satisfied with having the 2019 PIF just ‘noting’ our proposal,” said Solomon Yeo, another original class member and PISFCC’s campaign director.
“It is something that we truly believed is worth fighting for, so we kept on fighting. The pandemic ruined our plans for a while but we didn’t let that stop us – during lockdowns we started a network called World’s Youth for Climate Justice which spread the campaign to all continents and regions.”
Solomon Yeo is in New York assisting the Vanuatu UN Mission with the final stages of the campaign and witnessing the resolution being adopted at the UNGA. “These are exactly the kind of high-achieving publicly-minded graduates that we aim to produce.”