Latest news with #internationalaw
ABC News
11 hours ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Top court rules on legal obligation to fight climate change
Sabra Lane: The United Nations top court has found countries that fail to take measures to prevent climate change could be in violation of international law. The International Court of Justice's landmark ruling has paved the way for countries to sue each other over the impacts of climate change. It's been welcomed by environmental groups and legal experts who say it's a victory for small islands in countries suffering from the impacts of high polluting nations. Europe correspondent Bridget Rollason reports. Protesters: What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now! Bridget Rollason: Outside the Hague's World Court, protesters gathered to witness a historic moment in international law. Samira Ben Ali travelled to the Netherlands from Africa for the hearing, which could change the course of future climate action across the world. Samira Ben Ali: If we don't take action now, if we don't reduce our emissions, then this is going to keep on going and it's going to become bigger and bigger. Bridget Rollason: The landmark case before the International Court of Justice has been hailed a David and Goliath battle. A group of Pacific students were able to bring the world's biggest problem to the world's highest court through a global campaign led by Vanuatu and backed by 130 countries, including Australia. For the first time, its 15 judges were asked to decide what obligations states have to prevent climate change and what are the consequences if they fail. President of the court, Yuji Iwasawa, said if countries fail to take measures to protect the planet from climate change, they could be in violation of international law, even if they're not signed up to the Paris Agreement or want to leave, like the US. Yuji Iwasawa: The consequences of climate change are severe and far-reaching. They affect both natural ecosystems and human populations. Bridget Rollason: Nearly 100 countries gave evidence over two weeks of hearings in the court's biggest ever case. President Iwasawa ruled countries harmed by climate change could be entitled to compensation and sue other countries for damage they've suffered from rising global temperatures. Yuji Iwasawa: The court considers that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of many human rights, such as the right to life, right to health and the right to an adequate standard of living. Bridget Rollason: The landmark 500-page ruling is non-binding, but it's seen as a potential turning point in international climate law. It's been welcomed by environmental groups and legal experts, who say it's a victory for small islands and countries taking legal action against big polluting nations for failing to reduce their emissions. Senior Attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law, Joie Chowdhry, said the ruling is more than just a powerful symbol. Joie Chowdhury: It could be one of the most consequential legal rulings of our times because of the scope of the issues that it touched, which run to the very heart of climate justice, and could secure a lifeline for climate-affected communities and nations all over the world. Sabra Lane: That's Joie Chowdhury from the Centre for International Environmental Law, ending that report from Bridget Rollason.
CNN
15 hours ago
- Politics
- CNN
World's top court says top polluters may need to pay reparations for climate harm
The world's highest court said polluting countries may be in breach of international law if they do not protect the planet from the 'existential threat' posed by climate change, in a landmark advisory opinion issued Wednesday. It also said countries feeling the sharp end of climate change may be entitled to reparations for the harm caused by rising temperatures. The advisory opinion marks the first time the International Court of Justice, the UN's top court based in the Hague, has formally addressed the climate crisis. The court was asked to consider two fundamental questions: what legal obligations nations have under international law to address climate change, and what the consequences should be for countries that harm the climate. Its opinion, which runs to more than 500 pages, said climate change was an 'urgent and existential' threat and was unequivocally caused by human activities. 'The human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is essential for the enjoyment of other human rights,' said Yuji Iwasawa, president of the ICJ, as he read out the opinion. 'Failure of a state to take appropriate action to protect the climate system … may constitute an internationally wrongful act,' he added. The court said states must cooperate to reduce planet-heating pollution and that countries harmed by the climate crisis may be entitled to reparations on a case-by-case basis. The ruling is not legally binding, but the status of the court gives it significant weight. Experts say it could bolster climate negotiations and provide a huge boost to climate lawsuits around the world. 'This ruling is a powerful tool we can use to demand that those most responsible for this climate crisis be held accountable,' said Flora Vano, Vanuatu country manager for the non-profit ActionAid. 'As the planet's weather becomes more chaotic, this ruling paves the way for the protections and reparations we desperately need to rebuild our lives and secure a just future.' The opinion comes in the middle of a summer punctuated by extreme weather events, made more intense, more frequent and more deadly by climate change. Vast swaths of the Northern Hemisphere have baked under searing heat waves and more than 1,000 lives have been lost to devastating flooding from the US to Pakistan. The idea for the case originated with a group of law students in Fiji in 2019, who were trying to find a way to hold the rich world accountable for climate change, for which they are disproportionately responsible. Their plan was endorsed by the government of Vanuatu, a Pacific island nation facing an existential threat from fast-rising seas. In 2021, it called on the ICJ to issue an advisory opinion on countries' legal responsibility to fight the climate crisis. More than 100 states and international organizations took part in two weeks of hearings before the court in December. Many wealthier counties argued that climate responsibilities were already set out in existing treaties including the Paris climate agreement. Developing nations, which are paying a steep and deadly price for a climate crisis they did little to cause, argued these treaties are failing and called for stronger measures to ensure a livable planet. Under the Paris Agreement, countries pledged to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above levels before humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels. The world is currently heading towards 3 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century, which would bring catastrophic impacts and the risk of triggering climate tipping points, including ice sheet melting, which may be irreversible on human timescales. The ICJ case is one of several climate-related cases launched in international courts in recent years. In May 2024, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea found that carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels counts as marine pollution. The court, which is based in Germany, ruled countries had legal obligations to mitigate the impacts. Earlier this month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued an advisory opinion which stated countries have a duty under international law to address the threat posed by climate change.
New York Times
14-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Plan to Permanently Displace Palestinians Threatens to Derail Gaza Truce
An Israeli proposal to force much of Gaza's population into a small zone in the territory's south has threatened to derail the latest effort to achieve a truce between Israel and Hamas. In recent weeks, Israeli officials have briefed journalists and foreign counterparts on a loose plan to force hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians into an area controlled by Israel's military close to the Gaza-Egypt border. Legal experts have warned that the plan would violate international law because the civilians would be barred from returning to their homes to the north, a restriction that would constitute a form of ethnic cleansing. While the Israeli government has yet to formally announce or comment on the plan, the idea of a new encampment in southern Gaza was first proposed last week by Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister. He discussed it at a briefing with Israeli correspondents who focus on military affairs, and The New York Times reviewed readouts of the briefing written by its attendees. Several attendees also wrote articles that attracted widespread attention among both Israelis and Palestinians. A spokesman for Mr. Katz declined to comment on the reports, as did the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister. Now, Hamas has cited Mr. Katz's proposal as one of the latest obstacles to a new truce. During a cease-fire, in exchange for releasing roughly 25 hostages, Hamas wants Israeli troops to withdraw from much of Gaza. The new Israeli plan makes such an outcome far less likely, since it would ensure that Israeli troops remained in charge of a large area over which Hamas seeks to reestablish control. Husam Badran, a senior member of Hamas, described the establishment of the encampment as a 'deliberatively obstructive demand' that would complicate the fraught negotiations. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
12-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Yes, Israel's plan for Rafah would be a crime – but international law has never protected Gaza
Over the past 21 long months of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, voices all over the world have decried the demise of international law and the rule-based order. And indeed, the facade of Israel's adherence to international law has vanished and policies that constitute war crimes are now brazenly declared. This week, Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, has shared plans to forcibly move Palestinians into a camp in the ruins of Rafah. Once they enter, they cannot leave. In other words, a concentration camp, which by definition is an internment centre for members of a national group (as well as political prisoners or minority groups) on the grounds of security or punishment, usually by military order. Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer, was quoted in the Guardian as saying that Katz 'laid out an operational plan for a crime against humanity'. Hundreds have been killed and thousands wounded trying to access food. I have tried hard to understand the incomprehensible suffering endured by Palestinians in Gaza and how it is that most Israelis do not acknowledge their humanity. How are they able to show no remorse for what their army is carrying out in their name? I believe the seed of our dehumanisation was planted during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Palestinians were violently deprived of land, property and belongings in what we would come to call the Nakba (Arabic for 'the catastrophe'), on the grounds that the land was God-given to the Jewish people. From that time, Israelis have been able to use Arab homes, lands and orchards without any feeling of guilt. The 7 October attacks were the starting point of the war, but Israel has been systematically degrading and dispossessing the Palestinian people for decades. Such violations of international law lead to a feeling of despair about the inability of institutions to prevent the horrors of Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank and to hold perpetrators to account. The UN-backed international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of 'the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts'. No arrests have been made. The west continues to supply military and political support to Israel. I ask myself: should we Palestinians feel helpless in the face of this failure? And yet the truth is that international law, though used as a measuring stick and point of reference by human rights organisations, has never been Palestine's salvation. Ever since the failure to implement the 1948 UN resolution 194, which gave Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes in what became Israel, we have been disappointed again and again. This has not been for lack of attempts by Palestinians over the years to invoke the law – whether through Israeli courts, international tribunals or third-party enforcement mechanisms. One simple reason for their failure has been that international law lacks effective means of enforcement. More complex reasons rest with the interests of the powerful. My hope lies in Palestinian resilience. The prevalent hope and expectation was that the Palestinians would forget their land in a generation or two. This proved totally unfounded. Seventy-seven years later, Palestinians are as attached to the land they were forced from as in those first few bloody days. Likewise with all the illegal changes and extensive Jewish settlement and altered geography in my home, the West Bank, we Palestinians continue to hold on to the practice we call sumoud: refusing to give up or leave. I cannot speak for Palestinians in Gaza, but I can see that we share the same spirit despite the immensity of the suffering. When the war ends, and journalists and foreign organisations are allowed access to Gaza, the truth will emerge. The heart-wrenching first-hand accounts by those living there – the experiences of the women, men and children, of artists, writers and poets; lives cut short, or changed irrevocably – may yet come to haunt Israelis. It will be our humanity, not any international law, that will judge and hold Israel and its allies accountable. On a different scale but in no less glaring a manner, the illegal unilateral changes that Israel is carrying out in the West Bank, often with the aid of settler militias, will provide an image of Israeli greed for land and its ideologically driven policies. Perhaps there is no better example of the absurdity of Israel's actions than the case of the Old City of Hebron. The city is held hostage by a small group of Jewish extremists numbering 900 who live in the centre of Hebron – the second-largest Palestinian city in the West Bank, with a population of 232,500. The Jewish population is protected day and night by more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers. To allow settlers and soldiers to move freely, restrictions on Palestinian movement include dozens of fortified checkpoints, roadblocks and permanent and temporary military posts. The old city has practically been emptied of its Palestinian population. Is this sustainable? As far as the future of Gaza is concerned, the question that is going to be crucial is whether, with the destruction of the means of surviving – the farmland, water supplies, hospitals and schools – the land can continue to sustain life. The world community that has shamefully failed to enforce international law could make a difference on this matter if it insists that, after the end of hostilities, Israel allows the opening of the Gaza Strip and ensures that aid is brought to enable Palestinians to continue living there while the area is rebuilt. Gaza has a history of 4,000 years of continuous human habitation. Israel's attempt at causing life there to cease is doomed to fail. Palestinians will, either with the help of others or without, find a way to survive. Raja Shehadeh is a Palestinian lawyer and writer, and founder of the human rights organisation Al-Haq. His latest book is Forgotten: Searching for Palestine's Hidden Places and Lost Memorials, with Penny Johnson.
The Guardian
12-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Yes, Israel's plan for Rafah would be a crime – but international law has never protected Gaza
Over the past 21 long months of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, voices all over the world have decried the demise of international law and the rule-based order. And indeed, the facade of Israel's adherence to international law has vanished and policies that constitute war crimes are now brazenly declared. This week, Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, has shared plans to forcibly move Palestinians into a camp in the ruins of Rafah. Once they enter, they cannot leave. In other words, a concentration camp, which by definition is an internment centre for members of a national group (as well as political prisoners or minority groups) on the grounds of security or punishment, usually by military order. Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer, was quoted in the Guardian as saying that Katz 'laid out an operational plan for a crime against humanity'. Hundreds have been killed and thousands wounded trying to access food. I have tried hard to understand the incomprehensible suffering endured by Palestinians in Gaza and how it is that most Israelis do not acknowledge their humanity. How are they able to show no remorse for what their army is carrying out in their name? I believe the seed of our dehumanisation was planted during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Palestinians were violently deprived of land, property and belongings in what we would come to call the Nakba (Arabic for 'the catastrophe'), on the grounds that the land was God-given to the Jewish people. From that time, Israelis have been able to use Arab homes, lands and orchards without any feeling of guilt. The 7 October attacks were the starting point of the war, but Israel has been systematically degrading and dispossessing the Palestinian people for decades. Such violations of international law lead to a feeling of despair about the inability of institutions to prevent the horrors of Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank and to hold perpetrators to account. The UN-backed international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of 'the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts'. No arrests have been made. The west continues to supply military and political support to Israel. I ask myself: should we Palestinians feel helpless in the face of this failure? And yet the truth is that international law, though used as a measuring stick and point of reference by human rights organisations, has never been Palestine's salvation. Ever since the failure to implement the 1948 UN resolution 194, which gave Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes in what became Israel, we have been disappointed again and again. This has not been for lack of attempts by Palestinians over the years to invoke the law – whether through Israeli courts, international tribunals or third-party enforcement mechanisms. One simple reason for their failure has been that international law lacks effective means of enforcement. More complex reasons rest with the interests of the powerful. My hope lies in Palestinian resilience. The prevalent hope and expectation was that the Palestinians would forget their land in a generation or two. This proved totally unfounded. Seventy-seven years later, Palestinians are as attached to the land they were forced from as in those first few bloody days. Likewise with all the illegal changes and extensive Jewish settlement and altered geography in my home, the West Bank, we Palestinians continue to hold on to the practice we call sumoud: refusing to give up or leave. I cannot speak for Palestinians in Gaza, but I can see that we share the same spirit despite the immensity of the suffering. When the war ends, and journalists and foreign organisations are allowed access to Gaza, the truth will emerge. The heart-wrenching first-hand accounts by those living there – the experiences of the women, men and children, of artists, writers and poets; lives cut short, or changed irrevocably – may yet come to haunt Israelis. It will be our humanity, not any international law, that will judge and hold Israel and its allies accountable. On a different scale but in no less glaring a manner, the illegal unilateral changes that Israel is carrying out in the West Bank, often with the aid of settler militias, will provide an image of Israeli greed for land and its ideologically driven policies. Perhaps there is no better example of the absurdity of Israel's actions than the case of the Old City of Hebron. The city is held hostage by a small group of Jewish extremists numbering 900 who live in the centre of Hebron – the second-largest Palestinian city in the West Bank, with a population of 232,500. The Jewish population is protected day and night by more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers. To allow settlers and soldiers to move freely, restrictions on Palestinian movement include dozens of fortified checkpoints, roadblocks and permanent and temporary military posts. The old city has practically been emptied of its Palestinian population. Is this sustainable? As far as the future of Gaza is concerned, the question that is going to be crucial is whether, with the destruction of the means of surviving – the farmland, water supplies, hospitals and schools – the land can continue to sustain life. The world community that has shamefully failed to enforce international law could make a difference on this matter if it insists that, after the end of hostilities, Israel allows the opening of the Gaza Strip and ensures that aid is brought to enable Palestinians to continue living there while the area is rebuilt. Gaza has a history of 4,000 years of continuous human habitation. Israel's attempt at causing life there to cease is doomed to fail. Palestinians will, either with the help of others or without, find a way to survive. Raja Shehadeh is a Palestinian lawyer and writer, and founder of the human rights organisation Al-Haq. His latest book is Forgotten: Searching for Palestine's Hidden Places and Lost Memorials, with Penny Johnson.
