small island states call on international maritime law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

2023-09-12 12:56:49
From left: Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Arnold Loughman, Attorney General of Vanuatu, and Kausea Natano, Prime Minister of Tuvalu, arrive at a hearing at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, in Hamburg, September 11, 2023. GREGOR FISCHER / AFP

The case which opened on September 11 before the twenty-two judges of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) has the appearance of a remake of the fight of David against Goliath, version of ocean preservation.

Until September 25, 34 states and 4 intergovernmental organizations will plead before this United Nations tribunal located in Hamburg. In December 2022, at the initiative of Antigua and Barbuda and Tuvalu, the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (Cosis) asked ITLOS to issue a legal opinion and say whether emissions anthropogenic greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, pollute the oceans, causing their warming, their acidification, and the rise in sea levels. And if so, what are the legal obligations of States to reduce their carbon emissions ? Cosis, created in 2021 and which today has nine members for whom climate change constitutes a “existential threat”wants to force polluting states to limit their carbon emissions.

“Legally binding obligations”

At the opening of the hearing on Monday, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, said he was tired of “endless negotiations” and of “empty promises”. In one sentence, the head of government set out the issues: “The time has come to speak in terms of legally binding obligations rather than empty promises that are not kept, abandoning people to suffering and destruction. » Rectangular glasses, mustache, fitted suit, the minister assures that“No country on earth can escape the deadly grip of climate change.” For him, “the world is teetering dangerously on the edge of the precipice. We need your help “he says to the judges, seated at their desks forming a semi-circle of which the litigant has become the center.

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Gaston Browne holds his audience: he recalls the disasters that Antigua is going through, the three hurricanes that swept the Caribbean in 2017, destroying the economy, infrastructure and cultural heritage. The first of these hurricanes alone would have cost the Caribbean archipelago more than 206 million euros, forcing the country into debt.

Interviewed before the hearing, Cosis’s lead lawyer, Payam Akhavan, explains that today “the obligations of States do not go further than what is provided for in the Paris agreement”. He who inspired the creation of Cosis sees it “the crux of the problem, because the Paris agreement contains virtually no binding obligations “. In Hamburg, he pleads that “the ocean is the cradle of our earth”. Mr. Akhavan considers it urgent to apply the Montego Bay Convention to the letter, “the Constitution of the oceans”he says, which has governed the law of the sea since 1982. The Convention on the Law of the Sea obliges States to “protect and preserve the marine environment” taking all measures “to prevent, reduce and control pollution” seas and oceans.

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