Category: Press releases

“For us, almost everything is at stake”: How students from the Pacific took the fight against climate change to the world’s top court

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

Authoritarianism is supercharging the climate crisis

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

The age of fossil fuels must end. Here is how a Fossil Fuel Treaty can help.

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

Human rights as a compass for transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner

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