Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So my name is Cynthia who Nuhi. I am from
Solomon Islands. I think I was around eight to ten
when I could see the world more clearly and I
started noticing sea level rise.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Cynthia Hanuhi knew about the climate crisis before she had
a word for it. As a kid, she would travel
with her dad to the outlining Fanalay Island to visit
her family. There she saw empty, stilled houses sitting above
the water.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I liked asking questions and my dad was a very
patient man, and he told me about how the people
have had to move inland because the sea level was
coming in. And the more I asked, the more I
wanted to find out. And the more I found out
this changes are happening not because something that the people's
in the islands that are way far from the outside world,
(00:53):
so remote. It's not because of their owndoing. They contribute
almost nothing to this. But they are the ones that
you know, get.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
To loose their homes these days. Finally is quiet. Around
eighty percent of houses are abandoned, freshwater wells have been
inundated with salt water, and vegetables no longer grow in
the soil. Watching the slow destruction of her family's ancestral
home by man made climate change, Cynthia was motivated to act.
(01:23):
Cynthia's six year fight took her all the way to
the Hague and the International Court of Justice, where a
landmark for ruling was handed down last week. Hi, I'm
Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM today reporter
(01:48):
Shane Anderson on the Pacific Island students behind the historic
icj ruley and the implications for major polluters, including Australia.
It's Monday, July twenty eighth. Shane. You've been speaking to
Cynthia about her journey from the Pacific to the International
(02:10):
Court of Justice. Can you tell me about it?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, So, Cynthia, from those early experiences of seeing her relatives'
houses literally falling into the sea, she described it as
something that really motivated her to do something that could
help her people in a practical way, and that led
her to enroll in a law degree at the University
of the South Pacific. So she ended up moving from
(02:33):
the Solomon Islands to Port Vila, the capital of Vanawatu,
where the campus was. From there she ended up in
a course on environmental law.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
We went in bright eyed, you know, ready to be inspired.
But the more we learn, the more frustrating it became
that the mechanism the climate change regime that's in place
is not reflective of the urgency of the matter for
our people, especially all of us came from online communities,
and so you have difference from Tonga, Fiji, some more Kiribas,
(03:06):
all the others coming together to walk together towards a solution.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So what was really concerning to them was they were
seeing firsthand how the law was failing to recognize climate
harms that are having impacts on smaller nations who have
very little political power on the world stage to do
anything about it. It's in the context of this that
they started to learn about this thing called an advisory opinion.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Can you explain what an advisory opinion is?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yes, So, an advisory opinion is delivered by the International
Court of Justice in the Hague, which is connected to
the UN, and one of its functions is dispensing these
advisory opinions that aim to clarify some of the most
complicated and controversial legal questions regarding international law. And the
findings are non binding, which means they're not changing laws
(03:57):
on their own, but these opinions carry a lot of
legal weight, and it's for this reason that the ICJ
doesn't just give opinions on anything, and they usually tend
to deal with things like border disputes. So, for example,
there's an opinion being deliberated on at the moment around
the occupied Palestinian territories. But you know, when Cynthia and
(04:18):
her classmates were learning about the ICJ and the advisory opinion,
she told me that one of the reasons why it
was so appealing to her was because it sounded so familiar.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
In the Pacific, we've always had this worldview where when
there's uncertainty in terms of customs or culture, we go
to our chiefs and what they say in clarity how
many to our people. That's the same worldview we'd like
to present here in terms of the icc because we're
missing that secret authority that can clarify and set the basis.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Now, the ICJ is actually never given an advisory opinion
on climate change before, but in twenty twelve, the you know,
tiny Pacific nation of Palout initially had this idea of
going to the ICJ to seek an advisory opinion about
what the responsibilities are from the biggest polluters towards the
(05:11):
least polluters. That campaign failed, but the students thought, you know,
in the time that had passed since his campaign had failed,
the global awareness of climate change and the damage being
brought on the Pacific has grown so much that maybe
it was the right time for a renewed push with
slightly tweaked wording. And their next question was, well, this
(05:32):
is a good idea. How do we actually get this
before the UN General Assembly?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Okay, so tell me about it. How did they go
about that?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
So, to start with, they formed an advocacy group called
the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, of which Cynthia
became the president, and they began this massive letter writing campaign.
They wrote to the heads of state of a bunch
of different countries. They even sent a letter to former
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and probably not a surprise
(06:01):
to know they didn't get the response that they wanted.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Initially, we waited and we waited and waited and waited
and waited, and to a point where we thought, okay,
let us must have just gone to the out box.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Those were really hard days because there was a lot
of criticism and you know, people telling us off that
this is impossible, it's not going to go. But then
one country came back with very compelling positive response, and
that is the Republic of Vanuatu.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
So the first person to take their initiative seriously was
the then Foreign Minister of Vaniwatu, Ralph Frankenfarnu. He was
a former law student from that campus himself, and he
recalled being really impressed by their initiative. And from there
the idea was taken on by the Republic of Vaniwatu's government.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Right, so they've got the support of one country, but
you need more than that to get an issue in
front of the General Assembly.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Right yes, So in order to get something referred to
the International Court of Justice, you need a majority vote,
So you need ninety three countries minimum to support a
question to be referred to the ICJ. So the first
step of the Vadawatu government was to take it to
the Pacific Islands Forum. This happens every year. Australia and
(07:20):
New Zealand are part of the negotiations there. Even that
alone took nearly three or four years to be fully
endorsed by the Pacific Islands Forum and then from there
the momentum built globally. So the Pacific Island Students, including Cynthia,
they engaged something like fifteen hundred different advocacy groups across
(07:41):
one hundred and thirty countries. So this is a group
of volunteer law students who then went on and spent
all years traveling around the world trying to drum up
support for the initiative in front of the UN and
it absolutely worked. They got the vote they needed at
the General Assembly and then it went before the ICJ.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Once it was there, a record number of countries lined
up to have their say. After the break, the judges
make their ruling about what we owe our smaller neighbors
feeling the impact of climate change. Okay, so what did
the International Court of Justice find and what did they rule?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
So the question put to the ICJ was, you know,
asking them to clarify what are the obligations between bigger
polluting states towards smaller states in regards to protecting them
from climate change.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Climate change pauses are quintessentially universal risk to austics.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
And the Interctual Court of Justice spelled out for the
first time that the failure of larger polluting states to
protect smaller states from climate harms could be backed up
by legal consequences.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
The Court found that countries fail to take measures to
prevent climate change, they could be in violation of international
law and the countries.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
It goes on to explain that failures could be including
things such as still producing fossil fuels, still consuming fossil fuels,
still granting exploration licenses, or offering subsidies for the fossil
fuel industry.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
One of the things this does is clear the way
for countries to actually sue each other over their emissions
and contributions to climate change, even for historic emissions.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
What this does is it gives these smaller nations power
that they didn't have before. It gives them leverage in negotiations,
and it forces bigger nations to come to the table
and agree to more ambitious climate policy because now there's
the threat of consequences if they fail to do so.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And given all that, how could this impact Australia.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
It could have massive impacts on Australia in a number
of different ways.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Definitely. One of the options is litigation against Australia. Possibly
according to what Ralph.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Frank Andvarannu, who's now the Minister for Climate Change Adaptation
in the Republic of Anawatu. He actually went on the
ABC the morning the ruling was delivered and spelled out
really plainly that future litigation against Australia is now one
of the options on the table.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
To the Advisory pin and handed out today.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Australia is committing internationally wrong for acts because it is sponsoring,
it is subsidizing fossil fuel production and excessive emissions.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
I mean Australia is one of these.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
So not only does that leave Australia open to future litigation,
but it could influence cases that are already happening here
at the moment too.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So tell me a little bit more about that. Because
this decision comes just after another high profile climate decision
where traditional owners from the Torres Strait went to the
Federal Court of Australia and argued that the government had
a duty of care to protect their homelands from climate change.
The judge found the government didn't have an obligation, but
acknowledged the impact of climate change. So what impact could
(11:07):
this ruling have on that case and others like it?
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I mean, if we look back on that case, the
judge found that the government didn't have an obligation, not
because there wasn't a moral reason to protect the Torres
Strait Islanders, but because the current legal framework didn't allow
for it, and that's changed now. That's what doctor Wesley
Morgan told me this week. He's a research associate at
the Institute for Climate Risk and Response at UNSW Doctor
(11:33):
Morgan believes that this advisory opinion could change the outcome
of that case if there were to be an appeal.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
So, Shane, this is a huge victory for the group
of law students who first came up with this idea
way back in twenty nineteen. How do they feel about
the outcome.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I speak to Cynthia just after the advisory opinion was delivered,
and she told me she was happily exhausted.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
It's going to be emotional, I think emotional fust because
it's been six long years.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So even though this is a massive victory, I mean,
they've been doing this in a volunteer capacity now for
six years, and as excited as they are, I think
they're also really looking forward to having some rest.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I think it's cost us our youth. We've seen things
the young people in our shoes, but not normally do.
So we've grown with this campaign and so be emotional
all that reason.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
One of the things Cynthia really stressed to me when
I was speaking to her is that this advisory opinion,
it doesn't solve the climate crisis, obviously, but their best
hope was that it would give the next batch of campaigners,
you know, a blueprint for going forward, and that's exactly
what they've done.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I think my motivision has always been my islands, my people.
I love my people in my islands. I don't think
I've been born as Solomon Islander for a mistake. I
was to be a Solomon Island because those are the
people that really really need our help.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Shane, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Daniel, A spokesperson for Australia's Minister for Climate Change and Energy,
said the government is carefully considering the court's options. Also
in the news, more than one hundred international aid organizations
(13:33):
and human rights groups have warned of mass starvation in
the Gaza Strip as the Israeli militaries is it's starting
to air drop aid there. The move by the IDEA
follows international condemnation by EID experts saying air dropping food
is inefficient, a distraction, and could even kill starving civilians
if they go awry. The United Nations has warned that
(13:53):
one in three gardens are going days without food. At
least eighty five children have died from starvation so far.
Allding to Gaza's health ministry and Australia will not recognize
a Palestinian state at this point, according to Prime Minister
Anthony Albanesi. Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron announced he
will recognize a Palestinian state at the UN in September,
(14:15):
but Anthony Alberesi said he was only open to doing
so once there were appropriate guarantees about the viability of
the state, pointing to a need to exclude Hamas and
ensure a Palestinian state does not threaten the existence of Israel.
I'm Daniel James. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.