'Whether you win or lose, some fights are worth fighting': The largest ever climate case's unlikely origins
Cynthia Houniuhi speaks fondly about her childhood growing up in one of the remoter parts of the Solomon Islands. Her earliest memories are of wading through warm seas to get to school, trapping wild birds with her older brothers, and sowing sweet potatoes and cassava. "I love planting vegetables, although I'm not really a fan of eating my vegetables," she laughs. "I can eat fruit all day."
It was only later that Houniuhi realised something was amiss. She recalls a particular trip to Fanalei, the island her father is from, where she was shocked to see houses standing deep in salt water. She learned that some families had been forced to move.
It was the beginning of an awareness of climate change that would shape the next years of Houniuhi's life. It would also help bring the largest ever climate case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), sometimes known as the UN world court. The ICJ, which is based in the Netherlands, is today due to give its advisory opinion on states' legal obligations to tackle climate change under international law, and lay out the consequences of breaching them.
It's the largest case the court has ever considered – but it began with the spark of an idea in a university lecture theatre.
Even a decade ago, most people in Houniuhi's community had no technical terms for what was happening to them, she says, "just observations" of climate impacts on their daily lives. There is a growing body of evidence that rising seas and intensifying storms, exacerbated by climate change, are displacing coastal communities on the Solomon Islands and other low-lying Pacific island states.
"The only reason I made those connections was because I kept asking," Houniuhi says. She asked lots of questions of her family and neighbours: Was it always like this? How fast have things changed? Where are all the fish?
"The value that was instilled in me, the curiosity that was always there from an early age, really pushed me on to ask more," she says.
Motivated by a sense of justice and unafraid to speak up, Houniuhi decided to study law at the University of the South Pacific, in Fiji. In 2019, during her third year, lecturer Justin Rose tasked Houniuhi's class with the extracurricular task of promoting climate justice. One of the practical ideas they considered was seeking an advisory opinion from the ICJ, a formal document setting out the court's view on a particular topic.
Other major courts – such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – have also been asked for such opinions, which are politically influential and set the framework for future legal action. Most recently, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights has been asked for its opinion, and has just begun the process.
Houniuhi was hesitant at first, thinking the idea of approaching the ICJ was far too ambitious for a small group of students from the Pacific region. But she felt a sense of responsibility as part of a community on the frontlines of climate change and knew this was a problem that had to be tackled on a global scale.
"What is the use of learning all this knowledge if it's not for our people to fight the single greatest threat to their security?" she asked herself. "This was an opportunity to do something bigger than ourselves, bigger than our fears."
Houniuhi was one of 27 students to form an organisation called Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), and soon agreed to be its president. The group petitioned teachers and lecturers about the idea, and crowdfunded 80 Fijian dollars (£26/ $35) to pay for its first banner.
The timing was right, recalls Rose. A previous attempt to garner an advisory opinion from the ICJ by Palau and the Marshall Islands failed due to a lack of political support. But Houniuhi and her peers rode high on the global wave of youth climate activism begun by Greta Thunberg, and Rose was sure he could count on the support of Ralph Regenvanu, then Vanuatu's minister of foreign affairs and trade. Regenvanu was already an outspoken advocate for climate justice, who had threatened to sue fossil fuel companies and states.
Regenvanu was on board. With Vanuatu taking the diplomatic helm, PISFCC campaigned relentlessly over the next few years alongside a growing network of young activists across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. PISFCC members, especially a few of the most dedicated, traipsed through the corridors of power with posters and pitches at climate meetings around the world. They gradually gathered pledges of support from Pacific and Caribbean nations and then further afield.
Rose was supportive, encouraging PISFCC to keep true to its youth roots to remain grounded and to be able to tell an authentic story. Having followed the ups and downs of environmental politics for years, he says he was inwardly sceptical. But the group "just kept forging ahead", he says.
The bet paid off. By March 2023, 132 countries had agreed to co-sponsor a resolution to go before the UN General Assembly. Later that month the body unanimously called on the ICJ to provide its opinion on two key questions: what obligations do states have to tackle climate change under international law and what are the legal consequences if they fail to do so?
At the time PISFCC called it an "unprecedented step towards fighting the climate crisis". Its urgency was immediately apparent; Vanuatu was in a national state of emergency caused by two devastating tropical cyclones in 2023.
This was far from the end of the road for the young activists. The court now asked for states to set out their written views on the key questions. PISFCC realised the advisory opinion would only be as good as the quality of submissions received, but they were not allowed to participate directly.
Together with peers at World's Youth for Climate Justice, they undertook intensive lobbying under the slogan: "We're bringing the world's biggest problem to the world's highest court". They developed a handbook with legal experts to guide states in compiling their submissions, encouraged governments with fewer resources and less experience with the ICJ to get involved, and even managed to get into some Pacific island drafting rooms to discuss key topics affecting frontline communities.
In November 2024, the ICJ finally announced it would advance to the next step – holding a public hearing where states could present their views orally to the court. The young activists mobilised again, raising awareness of what could have been an obscure legal process and encouraging people to attend in person or through virtual "watch parties".
Battling visa problems and on a shoestring budget, a group of campaigners arrived in The Hague, the Netherlands, in early December to be greeted by drizzle. Before the hearing began, they held an opening ceremony that set the stage for the hearing through song and dance, bringing the warmth of the Pacific to the Netherlands.
PISFCC had a slot on the first day of the hearing. The group worked together on their speech and Houniuhi was the obvious person to present it. It was a heavy burden and she says she felt nervous going into the court alongside veterans of international law and a forbidding panel of 15 senior judges from across the ICJ's jurisdiction.
But thinking of her beloved nieces and nephews and seeing the excited youth team gave her courage. She had also been granted permission from Solomon Island chiefs to share their sacred knowledge, and knew that this was a special honour. "I am privileged enough to have an education that got me into this," Houniuhi recalls thinking to herself. "I have the opportunity right here."
On the day, only her parents noticed that she could barely remember her own name. "The Pacific people really were my support system at that time. And they showed up in colours as well," she says, noting the array of traditional clothing that was on display in the room. Houniuhi herself wore her family's rorodara, a headdress encrusted with tiny shellsonly worn on special occasions. As her moment to speak came, Houniuhi suddenly felt the power shift.
Stepping up to a podium in the middle of the room, she told the court how her people's land of Fanalei was on the verge of being completely engulfed by the rising seas. "Without our land, our bodies and memories are severed from the fundamental relationships that define who we are," she said.
Over the next two weeks, just shy of 100 states gave oral statements to the court, alongside the World Health Organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and other groups.
Most states argued that a wide range of international law applied to climate change, including treaties and customary rules on due diligence, the duty to cooperate and the prevention of transboundary harm, as well as the right to self-determination. Human rights are being harmed, they argued, including those of children and future generations.
Speaking on behalf of a group of Melanesian nations – which include Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu – all vulnerable to rising seas and temperatures, Regenvanu (now Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change), pointed the blame squarely at "a handful of readily identifiable states". These nations had produced the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions but stood to lose the least from their impacts, Regenvanu said.
That "handful" hit back. Australia, the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, China and Russia maintained that any legal responsibility was limited exclusively to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement agreed under it in 2015. Many denied that human rights had any bearing on the questions at stake. Houniuhi says she found it hard to hear these arguments. "Being in the room… is different from seeing them on paper."
Far from being an abstract problem deep in the future, representatives of nations across the Pacific and Caribbean, Africa, South America and Asia described the physical, economic and cultural impacts that climate change is already having on their people: deaths in the choking heat, poorer crops of staple foods of huge local significance such as yam and coconut, graveyards being washed away, forced relocations and livelihoods under threat.
This group of nations appealed for climate justice to the ICJ, arguing that the states that have done the most damage do not just have a moral responsibility to those that have done the least, but a legal one. Many called for financial reparations to address it. (Read more about what the world would look like if polluters paid for climate damages).
The court's decision builds on the opinions of the two other international courts. The first was the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, which stated in 2024 that greenhouse gases are pollutants that are wrecking the marine environment. Second, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights concluded in July that there is a human right to a healthy climate that states have a duty to protect.
The ICJ's opinion is not binding, but it will likely be used to back up climate lawsuits and as diplomatic fuel during international negotiations – particularly at COP30 in Brazil in November.
However, the process of collecting statements and hearing state submissions has been important in and of itself.
Joie Chowdhury is a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, a non-profit which supported PISFCC and helped write daily legal briefings during the December hearing. She says the process led to unprecedented collaboration and built legal capacity among states not previously used to the ICJ. "The law creates the stage to build power, to build alliances, to bring alignment, and there can be great power in that."
It also gave vulnerable communities an opportunity to tell their stories and was a way of explaining the injustice of climate change to a wider audience.
Houniuhi stresses that most people on the Solomon Islands, particularly in rural areas, are struggling to make ends meet. So while climate change is threatening their economic, social and cultural rights, they did not have the luxury of following a highly technical process unfolding in a court 15,000 miles (24,140km) away. But the conversations that she and others had as a result of the ICJ process have helped raise awareness of what is happening and why. "The language has changed," she says.
"The campaigners were thinking about the law in a way that really shifts how it is usually practiced," says Chowdhury. "They have been talking about ways of building movements rooted in the Pacific, identity and solidarity, and justice."
Despite expressing a weariness at the reality of climate politics, Rose still supports the campaign. "There's lots of people offering you hope," he tells the young activists. "What you'll get from me is that, whether you win or lose, some fights are worth fighting."
More like this:• What if polluters footed the climate bill?• The world's largest environmental restoration plan• Five nature wins that have actually worked
Houniuhi too remains a "stubborn optimist" about it all. She has started teaching at the same law school where she studied five years ago, and plans to step down as president of PISFCC, handing it over to another young person to lead the organisation into its next phase.
But she always knew this would be a role for life. She says the group dynamics are grounded in trust and always focused on the bigger picture. It's a message that comes time and again from the young people involved, who stress how collaborative the task has been.
"I'm not going to lie – there are times when someone accidentally dropped a laptop and there was a whole lot of looking for funding to buy a new one," says Houniuhi. "But most of the members have held my hand so many times. The nature of the work you're dealing with means sharing your personal stories. This made us realise we need to be the support for each other."
PISFCC is tussling with its next steps, trying to work out how it can ensure the advisory opinion makes a difference in the real world while remaining a youth-driven organisation. Whatever happens, this network of passionate activism and friendship that has grown around the campaign in the Pacific Islands is likely to remain.
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Update: This article was updated on 23 July 2025 to add that the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights has also been asked for an advisory opinion on climate change, in addition to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
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'Whether you win or lose, some fights are worth fighting': The largest ever climate case's unlikely origins
In 2019, a group of Pacific Island students took a classroom idea on climate change and turned it into a massive global operation. It all began with a bold student idea. Cynthia Houniuhi speaks fondly about her childhood growing up in one of the remoter parts of the Solomon Islands. Her earliest memories are of wading through warm seas to get to school, trapping wild birds with her older brothers, and sowing sweet potatoes and cassava. "I love planting vegetables, although I'm not really a fan of eating my vegetables," she laughs. "I can eat fruit all day." It was only later that Houniuhi realised something was amiss. She recalls a particular trip to Fanalei, the island her father is from, where she was shocked to see houses standing deep in salt water. She learned that some families had been forced to move. It was the beginning of an awareness of climate change that would shape the next years of Houniuhi's life. It would also help bring the largest ever climate case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), sometimes known as the UN world court. The ICJ, which is based in the Netherlands, is today due to give its advisory opinion on states' legal obligations to tackle climate change under international law, and lay out the consequences of breaching them. It's the largest case the court has ever considered – but it began with the spark of an idea in a university lecture theatre. Even a decade ago, most people in Houniuhi's community had no technical terms for what was happening to them, she says, "just observations" of climate impacts on their daily lives. There is a growing body of evidence that rising seas and intensifying storms, exacerbated by climate change, are displacing coastal communities on the Solomon Islands and other low-lying Pacific island states. "The only reason I made those connections was because I kept asking," Houniuhi says. She asked lots of questions of her family and neighbours: Was it always like this? How fast have things changed? Where are all the fish? "The value that was instilled in me, the curiosity that was always there from an early age, really pushed me on to ask more," she says. Motivated by a sense of justice and unafraid to speak up, Houniuhi decided to study law at the University of the South Pacific, in Fiji. In 2019, during her third year, lecturer Justin Rose tasked Houniuhi's class with the extracurricular task of promoting climate justice. One of the practical ideas they considered was seeking an advisory opinion from the ICJ, a formal document setting out the court's view on a particular topic. Other major courts – such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – have also been asked for such opinions, which are politically influential and set the framework for future legal action. Most recently, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights has been asked for its opinion, and has just begun the process. Houniuhi was hesitant at first, thinking the idea of approaching the ICJ was far too ambitious for a small group of students from the Pacific region. But she felt a sense of responsibility as part of a community on the frontlines of climate change and knew this was a problem that had to be tackled on a global scale. "What is the use of learning all this knowledge if it's not for our people to fight the single greatest threat to their security?" she asked herself. "This was an opportunity to do something bigger than ourselves, bigger than our fears." Houniuhi was one of 27 students to form an organisation called Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), and soon agreed to be its president. The group petitioned teachers and lecturers about the idea, and crowdfunded 80 Fijian dollars (£26/ $35) to pay for its first banner. The timing was right, recalls Rose. A previous attempt to garner an advisory opinion from the ICJ by Palau and the Marshall Islands failed due to a lack of political support. But Houniuhi and her peers rode high on the global wave of youth climate activism begun by Greta Thunberg, and Rose was sure he could count on the support of Ralph Regenvanu, then Vanuatu's minister of foreign affairs and trade. Regenvanu was already an outspoken advocate for climate justice, who had threatened to sue fossil fuel companies and states. Regenvanu was on board. With Vanuatu taking the diplomatic helm, PISFCC campaigned relentlessly over the next few years alongside a growing network of young activists across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. PISFCC members, especially a few of the most dedicated, traipsed through the corridors of power with posters and pitches at climate meetings around the world. They gradually gathered pledges of support from Pacific and Caribbean nations and then further afield. Rose was supportive, encouraging PISFCC to keep true to its youth roots to remain grounded and to be able to tell an authentic story. Having followed the ups and downs of environmental politics for years, he says he was inwardly sceptical. But the group "just kept forging ahead", he says. The bet paid off. By March 2023, 132 countries had agreed to co-sponsor a resolution to go before the UN General Assembly. Later that month the body unanimously called on the ICJ to provide its opinion on two key questions: what obligations do states have to tackle climate change under international law and what are the legal consequences if they fail to do so? At the time PISFCC called it an "unprecedented step towards fighting the climate crisis". Its urgency was immediately apparent; Vanuatu was in a national state of emergency caused by two devastating tropical cyclones in 2023. This was far from the end of the road for the young activists. The court now asked for states to set out their written views on the key questions. PISFCC realised the advisory opinion would only be as good as the quality of submissions received, but they were not allowed to participate directly. Together with peers at World's Youth for Climate Justice, they undertook intensive lobbying under the slogan: "We're bringing the world's biggest problem to the world's highest court". They developed a handbook with legal experts to guide states in compiling their submissions, encouraged governments with fewer resources and less experience with the ICJ to get involved, and even managed to get into some Pacific island drafting rooms to discuss key topics affecting frontline communities. In November 2024, the ICJ finally announced it would advance to the next step – holding a public hearing where states could present their views orally to the court. The young activists mobilised again, raising awareness of what could have been an obscure legal process and encouraging people to attend in person or through virtual "watch parties". Battling visa problems and on a shoestring budget, a group of campaigners arrived in The Hague, the Netherlands, in early December to be greeted by drizzle. Before the hearing began, they held an opening ceremony that set the stage for the hearing through song and dance, bringing the warmth of the Pacific to the Netherlands. PISFCC had a slot on the first day of the hearing. The group worked together on their speech and Houniuhi was the obvious person to present it. It was a heavy burden and she says she felt nervous going into the court alongside veterans of international law and a forbidding panel of 15 senior judges from across the ICJ's jurisdiction. But thinking of her beloved nieces and nephews and seeing the excited youth team gave her courage. She had also been granted permission from Solomon Island chiefs to share their sacred knowledge, and knew that this was a special honour. "I am privileged enough to have an education that got me into this," Houniuhi recalls thinking to herself. "I have the opportunity right here." On the day, only her parents noticed that she could barely remember her own name. "The Pacific people really were my support system at that time. And they showed up in colours as well," she says, noting the array of traditional clothing that was on display in the room. Houniuhi herself wore her family's rorodara, a headdress encrusted with tiny shellsonly worn on special occasions. As her moment to speak came, Houniuhi suddenly felt the power shift. Stepping up to a podium in the middle of the room, she told the court how her people's land of Fanalei was on the verge of being completely engulfed by the rising seas. "Without our land, our bodies and memories are severed from the fundamental relationships that define who we are," she said. Over the next two weeks, just shy of 100 states gave oral statements to the court, alongside the World Health Organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and other groups. Most states argued that a wide range of international law applied to climate change, including treaties and customary rules on due diligence, the duty to cooperate and the prevention of transboundary harm, as well as the right to self-determination. Human rights are being harmed, they argued, including those of children and future generations. Speaking on behalf of a group of Melanesian nations – which include Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu – all vulnerable to rising seas and temperatures, Regenvanu (now Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change), pointed the blame squarely at "a handful of readily identifiable states". These nations had produced the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions but stood to lose the least from their impacts, Regenvanu said. That "handful" hit back. Australia, the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, China and Russia maintained that any legal responsibility was limited exclusively to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement agreed under it in 2015. Many denied that human rights had any bearing on the questions at stake. Houniuhi says she found it hard to hear these arguments. "Being in the room… is different from seeing them on paper." Far from being an abstract problem deep in the future, representatives of nations across the Pacific and Caribbean, Africa, South America and Asia described the physical, economic and cultural impacts that climate change is already having on their people: deaths in the choking heat, poorer crops of staple foods of huge local significance such as yam and coconut, graveyards being washed away, forced relocations and livelihoods under threat. This group of nations appealed for climate justice to the ICJ, arguing that the states that have done the most damage do not just have a moral responsibility to those that have done the least, but a legal one. Many called for financial reparations to address it. (Read more about what the world would look like if polluters paid for climate damages). The court's decision builds on the opinions of the two other international courts. The first was the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, which stated in 2024 that greenhouse gases are pollutants that are wrecking the marine environment. Second, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights concluded in July that there is a human right to a healthy climate that states have a duty to protect. The ICJ's opinion is not binding, but it will likely be used to back up climate lawsuits and as diplomatic fuel during international negotiations – particularly at COP30 in Brazil in November. However, the process of collecting statements and hearing state submissions has been important in and of itself. Joie Chowdhury is a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, a non-profit which supported PISFCC and helped write daily legal briefings during the December hearing. She says the process led to unprecedented collaboration and built legal capacity among states not previously used to the ICJ. "The law creates the stage to build power, to build alliances, to bring alignment, and there can be great power in that." It also gave vulnerable communities an opportunity to tell their stories and was a way of explaining the injustice of climate change to a wider audience. Houniuhi stresses that most people on the Solomon Islands, particularly in rural areas, are struggling to make ends meet. So while climate change is threatening their economic, social and cultural rights, they did not have the luxury of following a highly technical process unfolding in a court 15,000 miles (24,140km) away. But the conversations that she and others had as a result of the ICJ process have helped raise awareness of what is happening and why. "The language has changed," she says. "The campaigners were thinking about the law in a way that really shifts how it is usually practiced," says Chowdhury. "They have been talking about ways of building movements rooted in the Pacific, identity and solidarity, and justice." Despite expressing a weariness at the reality of climate politics, Rose still supports the campaign. "There's lots of people offering you hope," he tells the young activists. "What you'll get from me is that, whether you win or lose, some fights are worth fighting." More like this:• What if polluters footed the climate bill?• The world's largest environmental restoration plan• Five nature wins that have actually worked Houniuhi too remains a "stubborn optimist" about it all. She has started teaching at the same law school where she studied five years ago, and plans to step down as president of PISFCC, handing it over to another young person to lead the organisation into its next phase. But she always knew this would be a role for life. She says the group dynamics are grounded in trust and always focused on the bigger picture. It's a message that comes time and again from the young people involved, who stress how collaborative the task has been. "I'm not going to lie – there are times when someone accidentally dropped a laptop and there was a whole lot of looking for funding to buy a new one," says Houniuhi. "But most of the members have held my hand so many times. The nature of the work you're dealing with means sharing your personal stories. This made us realise we need to be the support for each other." PISFCC is tussling with its next steps, trying to work out how it can ensure the advisory opinion makes a difference in the real world while remaining a youth-driven organisation. Whatever happens, this network of passionate activism and friendship that has grown around the campaign in the Pacific Islands is likely to remain. -- Update: This article was updated on 23 July 2025 to add that the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights has also been asked for an advisory opinion on climate change, in addition to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. -- For essential climate news and hopeful developments to your inbox, sign up to the Future Earth newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights twice a week. For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
