The United Nations is set to vote on a resolution that could recognize governments’ legal responsibility to cut greenhouse gas emissions, including tackling fossil fuels, as part of a new political resolution.
The resolution is based on landmark findings on climate justice from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which were published last year after a series of hearings in The Hague.
A total of 132 states requested the ICJ’s advisory opinion without opposition in 2023, and it was hailed as a “historic win” for small island states.
Vanuatu, a Pacific island nation, has been leading a group of states to draft the resolution, which welcomes the ICJ’s opinion and aims to help it make a difference on the ground.
According to the report, the resolution’s text has changed significantly since an initial draft circulated in February, with calls for a “rapid, just and quantified phase-out of fossil fuel production and use” being replaced with an urge to transition away.
The US has lobbied to drop the resolution altogether, but Vanuatu’s climate justice envoy, Lee-Ann Sackett, said many states raised concerns or had comments, so significant effort was made to keep the text both “meaningful and unifying”.
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Key Changes to the Resolution
The final text, published at the start of the month, now clearly states that the UNFCCC and the Paris agreement are the primary international intergovernmental forums for negotiating a global response to climate change.
Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s climate minister, stressed that the resolution does not adjudicate disputes or attribute responsibility to any particular state, nor does it create new obligations or prejudice legal positions.
Despite the changes, Vanuatu’s climate minister said the resolution is “not a resolution that simply files the opinion away” and calls on all states to comply with their existing obligations as established by the court.
The court’s advisory opinion is already being used in climate litigation around the world, and judges are starting to reference it in their climate-related rulings.
International Cooperation
The resolution is being seen as a key test for the credibility of the international legal system, with Tania Romualdo, the permanent representative of Cape Verde to the UN, saying that the importance of the resolution extends beyond the text itself.
For small island developing states, they said, the resolution is about the affirmation and protection of their territories, sovereignty, and fundamental rights of their populations.
The vote on the resolution is set to take place on May 20, and Vanuatu is seeking support from as many other nations as possible.
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According to the report, the resolution’s passage would mean that governments recognize they have a legal responsibility to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
The ICJ’s advisory opinion considers international cooperation indispensable, and the resolution is intended to help member states think through how to implement their existing obligations.
As Sackett noted, there was close engagement from state delegations that do not usually intervene on climate texts, “because they recognise that this is also about the authority of the court, the integrity of the UN system and how they translate legal clarification into multilateral cooperation”.
In terms of numbers, the resolution has the support of 132 states, and Vanuatu hopes to match or exceed this number in the upcoming vote.
Meanwhile, the UN’s willingness to tackle the climate crisis in a fair and legal way will be tested next week during the critical vote.
The outcome of the vote is uncertain, but one thing is clear: the resolution has the potential to make a significant impact on the global response to climate change.
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