Youth Climate Justice Handbook: Summary for policymakers

This article is an abridged version of the original text, which can be downloaded from the right-hand column. We highlight some of the handbook’s key messages below, but please access the original text for more comprehensive detail, full references, or to quote text. For an overview see the Youth Climate Justice Handbook article.

About the Youth Climate Justice Handbook

The Youth Climate Justice Handbook presents the best and most progressive legal arguments on climate justice, responding specifically to the questions the UN General Assembly is requesting the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to answer. Consisting of three parts, the handbook also contains procedural and other relevant information that is a need-to-know for every State preparing for interaction with the Court, and a key resource for legal advocacy.

The Youth Climate Justice Handbook (the Handbook) has three components:

• Summary for Policymakers: summarises core material designed to assist policymakers’ decisions regarding whether, and how, their governments should contribute to the ICJ climate advisory proceedings. It also outlines the Youth and Civil Society Alliance responses to the questions contained in UNGA Resolution 77/276.
• The Legal Memorandum: presents responses to the questions contained in UNGA Resolution 77/276, supported by legal argument drawing upon established principles of international law, treaty provisions, judgments of international and national courts and tribunals, and the work of esteemed legal scholars.
• The Status Report on Principles of International and Human Rights Law relevant to Climate Change: discusses the Court’s advisory function, and presents a detailed and neutral analysis of the existing principles of international law relevant to the request.

Introduction

On 29 March 2023 the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus Resolution 77/276 requesting the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an advisory opinion on the following questions:

1. What are the obligations of States under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases for States and for present and future generations;
2. What are the legal consequences under these obligations for States where they, by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment, with respect to:
   • States, including, in particular, small island developing States, which due to their geographical circumstances and level of development, are injured or specially affected by or are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change?
   • Peoples and individuals of the present and future generations affected by the adverse effects of climate change?

The Youth and the Civil Society Alliance that has campaigned for the ICJ climate advisory opinion since 2019 believe that the upcoming advisory proceedings are a powerful mechanism by which much more hopeful, positive and sustainable paths can be chosen and mapped out, in law and in action. 

Since ICJ advisory proceedings arise infrequently, detailed knowledge of their role and processes is not widely-held and queries about them often arise.

Why did youth campaign for the climate advisory opinion?

The climate crisis is an intergenerational injustice of existential proportions. Young people and forthcoming generations will be disproportionately affected by the devastating effects of climate change. Climate change will severely impact every country, but those living in developing nations will face the most dire consequences, and paradoxically, are also those who have benefited the least from the causes of global climate change.

Upon the adoption of Resolution 77/276 Antigua and Barbuda observed: “We have a treaty regime for the climate, we have a treaty regime for the law of the sea, and we have a treaty regime for human rights. Yet we rarely examine how the obligations and rights of States and individuals are interlinked and build upon one another across these different silos.”

Only the ICJ has authority and jurisdiction to establish these linkages – not merely between the treaty regimes, but also taking account of established and emerging principles of international law. We believe that drawing these legal interconnections with clarity and certainty will strengthen international and national law addressing the climate crisis. It will also enhance mechanisms by which polluters may be held accountable by those who suffer most from their actions, including small island States and other States highly vulnerable to climate change.

For these reasons, in 2019 27 students from the law school at the University of the South Pacific began campaigning for the climate justice advisory opinion. From this grassroots youth movement an organisation was formed – Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC) – and commenced seeking support from Pacific Island Forum leaders. In 2020, inspired by PISFCC and recognising the need for a global movement, youth from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe organised themselves as World’s Youth for Climate Justice (WYCJ), members of which have worked to achieve State support in their respective regions.

What is an International Court of Justice advisory opinion?

PISFCC and WYCJ campaigned for the climate advisory opinion with the aim of promoting the development of stronger and better law around two fundamentally important themes:

The role of intergenerational equity in responding to climate change

• The principle of intergenerational equity is a shared inheritance among all individuals, including those of past, present, and future generations. It is a principle that promotes fairness among generations concerning the utilisation and preservation of the environment and its natural resources, including the climate system.
• The Youth Climate Justice Handbook – Legal Memorandum cites and explains many instances in which intergenerational equity has been applied in law. This occurs where international agreements, international and domestic proceedings, as well as domestic environmental law and policy recognise, account for, and prioritise the interests of future generations.

The role of human rights law in responding to climate change

When environmental damage threatens people’s health and the quality of life, obligations arise for States concerning the environment which are directly linked to human rights obligations. These obligations are extensive, encompassing a vast array of legal duties enshrined in the applicable legal frameworks. State obligations include the following (with more detailed analysis and evidence provided in the Youth Climate Justice Handbook – Legal Memorandum):

• Ensuring that they take measures to prevent and mitigate the effects of climate change, to avoid it threatening the lives and wellbeing of citizens.
• Addressing climate change in order to ensure that individuals and communities have the ability to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development.
• Ensuring the enjoyment of the right to a healthy environment.
• Refraining from unlawfully polluting the environment, enact and enforce laws to prevent water, air and soil pollution by extractive and manufacturing industries, and adopt measures against environmental and occupational health hazards.
• Preventing interference with a person’s privacy, family or home.
• Providing appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held by public autho- rities, including information on hazardous materials and activities in their communities.
• Providing access to effective remedies through judicial and other redress mechanisms, including restora- tion of the environment—to individuals and communities who suffer violations to their human rights because of the harm caused by climate change.
• Integrating the principles of non-discrimination and best interests of the child, together with the intercultural and gender approaches into their climate policies.

Why should climate vulnerable states participate fully in the ICJ climate advisory proceedings?

PISFCC and WYCJ urge the leaders of all States that are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change to take advantage of this unique and unrepeatable opportunity to present their own perspectives and arguments on climate justice to the world’s preeminent judicial body, for the reasons set out below.

• The integrity of the process will be strengthened through the Court hearing directly from a wide selection of those who are especially affected by, or particularly vulnerable to, climate change.
• An opinion from the Court clearly setting out legal obligations owed to the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, and their present and future citizens, will greatly assist in further securing frameworks of justice and equity within the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement processes.
• Mobilizing higher levels of financial and technical assistance for climate adaptation and mitigation, as well addressing losses and damages, is central to securing greater levels of justice and equity.
• Public and private responses to climate change will in the future be increasingly influenced and shaped by litigation and judicial decision-making.
• An opinion from the Court emphasising the significance and the interconnectedness of States’ legal obligations to both avoid catastrophic climate change, and to defend fundamental human rights, will likely place the interests of climate vulnerable States at the centre of international law responses to climate change.
• Consistent with legal obligations for inter- generational equity, today’s leaders owe a solemn legal and moral obligation to their youth and future generations of citizens to advocate on behalf of their interests at every significant opportunity.

A request from World’s Youth for Climate Justice and Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change

The civil society campaign that first persuaded the Republic of Vanuatu has since its inception been propelled and energised by students and young people. The successful adoption of UNGA Resolution 77/276 was achieved through strong partnerships between high-ambi- tion governments, organised youth and our civil society partners.

We strongly urge all governments, particularly climate- vulnerable States, not merely to participate in the ICJ proceedings, but in doing so to also ensure the voices of your young people are heard clearly, and that their testimony is placed before the Court.

We urge every participating State to involve young change-makers that are actively working to prevent climate injustice in your country in your written and oral submissions to the Court. Whether this occurs directly or indirectly, in person or through audiovisual technology, it is essential that it be done.

Young people are unable to ‘wait their turn’ to voice our concerns about climate change – it is the actions and decisions taken in this decade that will decide whether we collectively choose alternate paths to the UN Secretary General’s “climate hell”. We are seeking a future in which all are free to live with dignity and without fear of climate change denying us, and our children, of that freedom.

Additional resources

Legal Memorandum

Status Report on Principles of International and Human Rights Law relevant to Climate Change: