GENEVA – The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, Elisa Morgera, will visit Vanuatu from 27 November to 5 December 2024.

Morgera will focus on the adverse effects of sudden and slow onset climate events on human rights, the scope and extent of international climate cooperation and their impacts on human rights, needs for international technical assistance and finance, the role of the business community, and the integration of gender and intersectional perspectives in climate policies and implementation.

The expert will travel to Port Vila and other parts of Efate island, as well as the islands of Pele, Nguna and Tanna, to meet communities affected by climate change. She will also meet Government officials and representatives from civil society.

Morgera will hold a press conference in Port Vila on 5 December at 2 pm local time at the UN Joint Presence Office at the Vanuatu Reserve Bank Building. Access is strictly limited to journalists.

The Special Rapporteur will present her report to the UN Human Rights Council in July 2025.

Ms. Elisa Morgera is the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change.

The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council's independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures' experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

For more information and media requests, please contact Christel Mobech (mobech@un.org)

For media enquiries regarding other UN independent experts, please Dharisha Indraguptha dharisha.indraguptha@un.org) or John Newland (john.newland@un.org).

Follow news related to the UN’s independent human rights experts on Twitter @UN_SPExperts. 

 The Acting Director of the Department of Environment, Trinison Tarivonda, said the environment permit for the slipway development in Port Vila will lapse this month.

They explained that any development projects that are likely to cause impact on the environment, society or traditional custom, based on its type, size or location, must comply with the Act and apply for an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) permit.

Resolution asks ICJ to clarify countries’ obligations to fight climate change and the consequences they should face for inaction

Members of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change at a protest during the COP27 UN summit in Egypt. The group has celebrated the passing of a UN resolution calling for legal clarification of state obligations on climate. Photograph: Nariman El-Mofty/AP

“Young people across the world will recall the day when we were able to get the world’s highest court, the international court of justice, to bring its voice to the climate justice fight,” said Solomon Yeo, campaign director of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), who is from Solomon Islands.

The resolution calls for the international court of justice (ICJ) to issue an opinion clarifying nations’ obligations to tackle the climate crisis and the consequences they should face for inaction.

“I don’t want to show a picture to my child one day of my island. I want my child to be able to experience the same environment and the same culture that I grew up in,” said Cynthia Houniuhi, also of Solomon Islands and who is president of PISFCC. “The environment that sustains us is disintegrating before our eyes.”

Frustrated by the world’s lack of action on climate change, law students in eight Pacific island nations founded PISFCC in 2019 and launched their campaign to persuade their leaders to take the resolution to the UN’s highest court.

Spearheaded by Vanuatu, Pacific nations soon took up the law students’ call.

Pacific Island nations are at risk of rising seas engulfing swathes of the islands. Scientists say both extreme weather and sea levels have worsened because of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The resolution asks the court to pay particular attention to the harm endured by small island states.

Vanuatu Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau greeted the resolution as “a win for climate justice of epic proportions.”

“Today’s historic resolution is the beginning of a new era in multilateral climate cooperation, one that is more fully focused on upholding the rule of international law and an era that places human rights and intergenerational equity at the forefront of climate decision-making,” he said.

UN secretary general António Guterres said he hoped the opinion, when issued, would encourage nations “to take the bolder and stronger climate action that our world so desperately needs”.

While the opinion from the ICJ will not be binding, it will encourage states “to actually go back and look at what they haven’t been doing and what they need to do” to address the climate emergency, said Nilufer Oral, director at the Center for International Law at the University of Singapore.

The court has other power it can bring to bear, Christopher Bartlett, climate diplomacy manager for the government of Vanuatu, explained. The court can reference other international legal instruments, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and those do have the force of law for the countries that have ratified them.

“The international court of justice is the only legal authority that has a mandate to look at all of international law. While the advisory opinion itself is not binding, the laws upon which the advisory opinion will be speaking absolutely are legally binding and immediately applicable to states,” said Bartlett.

Bartlett said that some of the questions the ICJ will ask include: what harm to the climate has been done? Should states be forced to take certain actions? And is financial support a legal consequence of causing harm?

The resolution now goes to the court.

Countries have agreed to aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius with an upper limit of 2 degrees Celsius back in 2015 as part of the Paris Agreement. The agreement asks countries to submit their plans to curb greenhouse gases to the UN and regularly revise and update those plans.

Clarifying those obligations for states, as well as other promises to protect biodiversity and strengthen domestic policies are the main aims of the advisory opinion, said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s climate change minister.

“We are also clear eyed that existing international frameworks have significant gaps,” he said, adding that the opinion could push for stronger legal measures like negotiating a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty or criminalising “climate destroying activities”. lionaire owner, meaning we can fearlessly chase the truth and report it with integrity. 2023 will be no different; we will work with trademark determination and passion to bring you journalism that’s always free from commercial or political interference. No one edits our editor or diverts our attention from what’s most important. 

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Pacific projectPacific islands

 By foreign affairs reporter Stephen Dziedzic

Vanuatu's representative to the United Nations said 105 states back its push.(Supplied: Vanuatu Department of Tourism/Kirkland Photos)

Australia will join more than 100 nations and co-sponsor Vanuatu's landmark bid to have the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rule on the legal obligations that states have to deal with climate change and the damage it has caused.

Vanuatu's representative to the United Nations said on Thursday that 105 states — including several European countries, Pacific island nations and a host of smaller developing countries — would join its push to get the UN General Assembly to formally seek an opinion on the international legal obligations countries have to respond to global heating.

Neither China nor the United States, the world's two largest emitters, have signed on as co-sponsors for the motion, and neither have some larger developing countries that remain dependent on coal, including Indonesia and India.

However, an actual vote at the United Nations will not be held until later in the year.

Australia's move to join as a co-sponsor has been welcomed by Vanuatu and environmental groups, which have been urging the government to ramp up its ambition on tackling climate change.

Ruling would not be binding

Vanuatu was slammed by Cyclone Judy on Wednesday, and its foreign minister, Jotham Napat, said the disaster was another reminder of his nation's vulnerability to extreme weather events supercharged by climate change.

"While severe Cyclone Judy is today showing no mercy on the people of Vanuatu, it is welcome news that countries are committing to co-sponsor Vanuatu's UN Resolution on clarifying international climate obligations," he said.

Pacific advisor to Greenpeace Australia Pacific Shiva Gounden said he was also heartened by the strong international support for the motion.

"As the people of Vanuatu look ahead, yet again, to repairing their communities and counting their losses, the support of Australia and other countries around the world will provide hope for a better future," he said.

If the ICJ does agree to take on the issue and delivers an opinion, it would not be binding.

However, Pacific Island officials — who are championing the move — say it will still set a powerful precedent.

It could shape future rulings around the international legal obligations of states to protect people from climate change, and to compensate individuals and countries that suffer as a result of the resulting environmental chaos.

Previously, Australia argued the ruling should not focus solely on the responsibilities of the historically largest emitters, but must also capture the obligations of countries that are currently increasing emissions or that will continue to pollute in future years.

The government hasn't yet issued a public statement on its decision to join as a co-sponsor, but the ABC has approached the office of Foreign Minister Penny Wong for comment.

Source: ABC News

Pacific nation is sponsoring resolution that will ask ICJ to rule on consequences for climate inaction

A boy walks through through the ruins of his family home in Port Vila, Vanuatu after Cyclone Pam devastated the town in 2015. The Pacific country has co-sponsored a resolution on climate obligations at the UN. Photograph: Getty Images

Devastation of this sort is becoming more common throughout the Pacific, where rising sea levels are leaving shorelines increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather made more intense by climate change.

It is partly because of such crises that Vanuatu has introduced a resolution to the UN, co-sponsored by more than 100 other nations and set to be voted on this week, calling for the international court of justice (ICJ) to set out for the first time the obligations states have under international law to fight climate change, and specify any consequences they should face for inaction.

The resolution emerged out of frustration with the mismatch between the global community’s rhetoric and action on climate change, which routinely left Pacific activists and diplomats feeling “very disillusioned and disappointed”, says Kevin Chand, the legal adviser to Vanuatu’s mission to the United Nations. The global community “has been making progress, but it isn’t making progress fast enough when we in the Pacific are very vulnerable to climatic events”.

Advisory opinions by the ICJ are not binding on domestic courts. By establishing international legal rules, however, they can be influential sources of pressure on judges and governments. Vanuatu hopes an advisory opinion that sets out stricter climate obligations would strengthen climate-related lawsuits around the world and empower vulnerable nations in international climate negotiations.

Vanuatu already appears to have won majority support for its proposal, which is scheduled for a vote in the UN general assembly on Wednesday; 117 nations are co-sponsoring the draft resolution.

The campaign to secure an advisory opinion began four years ago in a classroom at the Fijian campus of the University of the South Pacific, where several law students were debating how best to draw the plight of their Pacific homelands to global attention. After striking upon the idea of an advisory opinion, they began lobbying their governments to support it.

Previous attempts by the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Bangladesh to seek an advisory opinion had stalled. But Pacific nations soon took up the law students’ call. They gradually won support from other small nations in Africa and the Caribbean, then secured the backing of more ambitious developed nations.

Vanuatu avoided singling out individual countries in its request to the ICJ, which has helped it draw support from large emitters like the UK and Australia. Other influential nations like the US and China have not yet expressed a public opinion on the proposal, but one person involved in the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity says both countries have indicated they would support it.

The person believes that Vanuatu’s campaign had been aided by the Pacific’s growing geostrategic prominence as the US and China compete for influence in the region. “Politics in the Pacific is very charged at the moment. It’s worked in our favour because it means that we have some leverage,” they say. “It gives us some opportunity to make moves like this because the big players don’t want to offend the Pacific Islands.”

Meanwhile, as these international debates play out, several thousand people in Vanuatu are still living in evacuation centres after the damage wreaked across their country by the twin cyclones. For them, advocates say, an advisory opinion strengthening the obligations on large emitters cannot come soon enough.

“Extreme weather events are becoming the new normal in our country as a result of climate change,” says Odo Tevi, Vanuatu’s ambassador to the UN. “For low-lying countries, it’s an existential threat.” Accordingly, says Tevi, “We need the global community to act.”

By Michael Birnbaum

The small Pacific island nation of Vanuatu won a major victory to advance international climate law Wednesday after it persuaded the U.N. General Assembly to ask the world’s highest international court to rule on the obligations of countries to address climate change.

By Anita Roberts Mar 3, 2023, Vanuatu Daily Post

Tropical Cyclone (TC) Kevin will bring more destruction while the people are still cleaning-up after category 3 TC Judy. Some homes have not been rebuilt and the government is yet to assess the widespread damage.

Warnings have already been issued for strong winds, heavy rainfalls and rough swells before the occurrence of TC Kevin.

The severe weather has triggered suspension of both domestic and international flights while ships, boats and small fishing rafts are advised not to go out to sea.

Some essential services like the banks will be temporarily closed today. Disruptions to electricity and telecommunication services are possible and government workers will resume work once the situation is declared all clear.

As of yesterday night, a Red Alert has been issued for SANMA, MALAMPA and PENAMA Provinces, Yellow Alert for TORBA and SHEFA.

Originated south of Solomon Islands, TC Kevin was upgraded to category 2 yesterday. As of yesterday night, it was positioned about 330km west of Santo and 430km west northwest of Malekula.

According to the Manager of the Weather Forecast Section, Fred Jockley, the cyclone will pass near the central and southern parts of Vanuatu.

It is likely the system will develop into a category 2 system and will further strengthen into a category 3 system, he said. He added that the system is expected to make landfall on Tanna on Saturday, tomorrow.

The cyclone is expected to leave Vanuatu water by tomorrow.

According to Weather Forecast Manager Jockley, this is not the first time for them to issue warnings for two systems in Vanuatu’s area of responsibility simultaneously.

People are advised to take precautions and follow advices from the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-Hazards Department (VMGD) and the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) to keep safe.

Meanwhile, the extent of the damage from the two systems will be known once the government make a full assessment. Based on initial reports, there is widespread damage to buildings, homes and crops in affected areas.