environment

Here’s How A Tiny Country Might Make A Huge Environmental Impact

The island nation is particularly vulnerable to the perils of climate change. Here’s How A Tiny Country Might Make A Huge Environmental Impact Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

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Despite being one of the world’s smallest countries, Vanuatu is making a big scene at the United Nations.

According to reports, the island nation’s leaders are calling on the international body’s justice panel to consider whether larger countries that have contributed to the climate emergency should face punishment via The Hague.

Understanding the argument

The nonbinding assessment is not the first step in this direction. About four years ago, a movement began in a classroom at a law school in Fiji and has grown to involve a number of Pacific islands — but Vanuatu has been at the forefront of the effort.

Now, its advisory opinion is in the hands of the UN General Assembly and could go up for a vote by Wednesday. It already has more than 100 co-sponsors and could be cited in future court cases across the United States and elsewhere around the world.

Instead of naming specific countries, the resolution offers a series of questions that courts could use to determine whether any nations should face consequences for their record of pollution.

The remote islands that make up the country are especially susceptible to damage from increasingly powerful storms like the back-to-back cyclones that devastated much of its surface earlier this year.

Is anything really going to change?

It’s significant that a number of industrialized nations including Australia, the United Kingdom, and Norway have signed on to the resolution.

Furthermore, even though the measure isn’t binding, Environmental Law Institute’s Sandra Nichols Thiam said that if the UN approves the opinion, it would carry a lot of weight.

Since courts in the U.S. often use relevant international law in cases, she noted that such a decision “could be a really big deal.”

Whether the U.S. will join forces with Vanuatu, however, remains to be seen.

Chris Agee
Chris Agee March 27th, 2023
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