Pacific Islanders behind landmark ICJ advisory opinion win Right Livelihood Award
SUVA (CBC)—For Vishal Prasad, climate change became a lot more than just an idea when Cyclone Winston devastated his home country of Fiji in 2016.
The storm hit the Pacific island chain nation with a shocking ferocity, knocking out power across the nation, killing dozens of people, and destroying entire villages. Six weeks later, while the people of Fiji were still mourning and rebuilding, yet another massive tropical cyclone, Zena, made landfall.
It quickly became clear to Prasad that this was the new normal for Pacific Islanders.
“Here we were, trying to pick up pieces of the cyclones and the continued cycle of being beaten by them, recovering, and then doing that over and over again,” he told As It Happens.
So in 2019, Prasad joined a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu who were planning to take the fight against climate change to the United Nations’ highest court.
In July, the International Court of Justice delivered a landmark advisory opinion that access to a “clean, healthy and sustainable environment’” is a human right, and countries who fail to take measures to protect people from climate change could be in violation of international law.
Now, the group that helped make that happen — Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC) — has been honoured with a Right Livelihood Award for their successful campaign.
“Because of this award, a lot more people get to know about this fight and get to join this campaign,” said Prasad, PISFCC’s director. “Right now, we have a strong opinion in our hands, but we need people to help implement this.”
What are the ‘alternative’ Nobels?
The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 when the Nobel Foundation rejected a proposal to add two new prizes to its prestigious roster to recognise individuals committed to social justice action and environmentalism.
Every year since, a panel of judges and former Right Livelihood laureates has awarded monetary prizes to “brave visionaries working for a more just, peaceful and sustainable world for all.”
PISFCC took home one of those prizes — and the accompanying 40,000 Euros (US46, 524)— alongside lawyer and writer Julian Aguon, whose legal team helped advance the ICJ case.
“Central to their strategy was gathering testimonies from Pacific communities, who are among those contributing least [to] climate change yet facing some of its harshest consequences,” Right Livelihood said in a press release.
“By carrying these voices of loss, resilience and demand for justice into the halls of international law, PISFCC ensured frontline realities shaped the ICJ’s judgment.”
Prasad says their victory wouldn’t have been possible without Pacific Islanders.
“Above all, I think, it is a recognition of the leadership of Pacific people — not just our organisation, but everyone in the region who has been showing unwavering climate leadership for so long,” he said.
Right Livelihood also awarded prizes this year to Justice For Myanmar, whose investigations have exposed the “corporate complicity” sustaining the country’s military junta, Emergency Response Rooms, a grassroots group responding to the humanitarian crisis in war-torn Sudan, and Audrey Tang, a “civic hacker” who, as Taiwan’s first digital minister, made broadband internet access a human right.
What the ICJ case means
The ICJ’s advisory opinion is non-binding, but has nevertheless been hailed as a turning point in international climate law.
It paves the way for other legal actions, including states returning to the ICJ to hold each other to account, as well as domestic lawsuits.
Thanks to the ruling, Prasad says, small countries like his, which contribute very little to climate change yet face the brunt of the consequences, can hold wealthy countries, who are responsible for most of the world’s pollution and C02 emissions, to account.
As of 30 June, a total 3,099 climate-related cases have been filed in 55 national jurisdictions and 24 international or regional courts, tribunals, or quasi-judicial bodies, according to the UN Environment Programme.
“I think with this opinion, all of these cases have a strong ground to stand on,” Prasad said.
But while he welcomes what he calls “strategic litigation,” he says it’s not the ultimate solution to climate change.
“That is time-consuming … and the impact is only quite narrow between the disputing parties,” he said.
“What we need to address climate change right now is a global solution. And so the opinion provides the pathway, but I think we need to now see how our existing systems respond to it and move in that direction — really building solidarity in addressing climate change. That’s what the opinion gives us a new chance to do.”…PACNEWS