Environmental advocates have urged the government to take advantage of the landmark advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ top court, that seeks to hold countries liable for failing to protect the planet while entitling to compensation those suffering from the harmful effects of climate change.
ICJ President Iwasawa Yuji said that failure to take proper action to protect the climate system from greenhouse gas emissions, including through fossil fuel production and consumption, granting of fossil fuel exploration licenses, or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies “may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that state.”
“In the event that restitution should prove to be materially impossible, responsible states have an obligation to compensate,” he added.
“While not legally binding, the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion is very significant to a third world country and climate vulnerable country like the Philippines, which deals every so often with typhoons, extreme weather events, and ocean acidification,” said lawyer Grizelda Mayo-Anda, executive director of the Environmental Legal Assistance Center.
She noted that despite the many environmental justice and climate change laws and policies in place, in addition to a resolution on the human rights impacts of climate change from the Commission on Human Rights, the “continuing challenge has been the enforcement of these laws and policies.”
Gerry Arances, executive director of the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, emphasized that the ICJ advisory opinion was not a creation of a new law but an interpretation of the existing and binding legal obligations of countries and companies in relation to climate change.
“It is in this light that we urge the Philippine government to step up and translate these legal duties into concrete actions by phasing out coal, and ending their continued support for the development of the gas industry,” he added.
As one of the most climate vulnerable countries on the planet, the Philippines will need every tool at its disposal. If used wisely, this ICJ Advisory Opinion can help us further our interests, push the agenda, and maybe even spur action or get compensation from states that could be held responsible for environmentally damaging policies or actions that we should be fighting against while we still can.*
