In 2019, a group of 27 law students from the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu began campaigning to take the issue of human-induced climate changeand its impacts on human rights to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Their initiative led the ICJ to issue a landmark Advisory Opinionin July 2025, which made it clear that governments have a legal obligation to protect human rights against climate change. Weiterlesen
The world’s slide into authoritarian practices is accelerating the climate crisis. At its core, the authoritarian goal is typically to enable resource consolidation for a few. Such projects pursue muscular governance that puts the concerns of these few people ahead of the planet, while weaponising disinformation and dissatisfaction. Weiterlesen
This submission to the Human Rights Advisory Committee highlights the diverse human rights impacts of sea-level rise, with particular reference to the impacts on people living in the low-lying atoll nations of Tuvalu and Kiribati, and in relation to their displacement associated with sea-level rise and climate change more generally. It also shows how similar effects are being experienced around the world, especially people living in small island states or in coastal areas in lower income countries that bear little responsibility for climate change – including in Bangladesh, Fiji, Honduras Pakistan, and Senegal. The submission ends with recommendations to states to avert, minimize and address these impacts. Weiterlesen
Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – touch nearly every part of our daily lives, but not without consequences. Their production and use are driving a global climate crisis. The failure of our governments to act, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, may well be the biggest intergenerational human rights violation in history. Weiterlesen
A draft United Nations (UN) resolution on climate change is seeking to turn the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on states’ obligations concerning the “urgent and existential threat” posed by climate change, into a roadmap for concrete action and accountability. Weiterlesen
This submission in response to the UNFCCC COP30 presidency’s invitation argues that a just transition away from fossil fuels must be explicitly anchored in human rights law and principles; the goal of limiting global temperatures to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels; the “polluter pays” principle; and equity. It must recognize that the climate crisis is, at its core, a human rights crisis whose impacts fall disproportionately on marginalized individuals and groups and thus must be tackled as an issue of climate justice that interrogates the root causes of the climate crisis and how human-induced climate change builds on and magnifies inequalities. Weiterlesen
As Trump tears down renewable energy, once again, Mozambique bears the brunt of climate harm caused by fossil fuel producers. Weiterlesen
Here, four young Bangladeshis, united in their hope that the new government will make a break with the past, share their expectations on what it must deliver. Weiterlesen
Governments must not squander the opportunity to turn the International Court of Justice’s 2025 Advisory Opinion on states’ obligations regarding climate change into robust climate action, Amnesty International said ahead of discussions to finalize a new UN climate change resolution. Weiterlesen
In 2024, for the first time, the global average temperature exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, making rapid coordinated global climate action even more urgent. Weiterlesen
