Khumbu Glacier at the Mt. Everest base camp. Because of rising temperatures, glaciers are melting at a faster rate. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

By Tanka Dhakal
THE HAGUE, Dec 10 2024 (IPS)

At the International Court of Justice (ICJ), no matter if the country had high Himalayas, was a small island nation or was experiencing armed conflict, they all agreed that the due diligence principle and the obligation of states to prevent harm caused by climate change, especially for high greenhouse gas emitters, were non-negotiable.

On Monday, December 9, 2024, countries including Nepal, Pakistan, Nauru, New Zealand and the State of Palestine presented their cases before the highest court within the United Nations.

Countries within the Hindu Kush Himalaya Region, Nepal and Pakistan, included examples of recent years disasters, including flash floods and their impact on livelihoods, while the small island state of Nauru laid out the toll faced by its people because of rising sea level. The State of Palestine connected its plea to ongoing armed conflict and climate-environmental destruction.

At the request of Vanuatu, the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ to issue an advisory opinion on the obligations of UN member states in preventing climate change and ensuring the protection of the environment for present and future generations. While its advisory opinion will not be enforceable, the court will advise on the legal consequences for member states who have caused significant harm, particularly to small island developing states. So far, more than 70 countries have presented their case before the court.

Indigenous Sherpa women in the Khumbu region of Nepal. These mountain communities are already facing the impact of climate change in the form of low snowfall and glacier melting, which causes floods. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

Human Rights and Technology Transfer—Nepal

Nepal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arzu Rana Deuba, stressed climate change-induced disasters were hindering the human rights of people on the front lines and said countries responsible for emissions needed to fulfil their obligations.

“Climate change hinders the realization and enjoyment of human rights, including the right to life, right to food, right to health, right to adequate housing, sanitation and water,” Deuba said. “Moreover, it impacts the rights of women, children and people with disabilities, as well as the cultural rights of minorities and indigenous communities.”

Nepal says many vulnerable states were not able to meet the obligations under international human rights laws, as the actions and emissions arising from beyond their territory also had adverse effects on the human rights of their citizens. The country of mountains, including Mt. Everest, stressed the need for material, technical and financial support from the countries whose historic emissions have caused the crisis of anthropogenic climate change.

“This includes unhindered access to technology and the sharing of meteorological and glacial data,” Deuba said. “Nepal considers that the court’s advisory opinion will contribute to clarifying the law, especially the obligations of the states regarding climate change and the rules governing the consequences of the violation of these obligations.”

Suvanga Parajuli, Under Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal, added that the country was facing a gross injustice. “What countries like Nepal are calling for is not mere handouts of charity but compensation for real climate justice,” Parajuli said.

Court Opinion Could Help Avert Catastrophe—Pakistan

Another HKH region country, Pakistan, which faced devastating floods caused by climate change in 2022, stressed the need for support and knowledge sharing. Mansoor Usman Awan, the Attorney General of Pakistan, urged the court to give an opinion that clarifies the legal obligations of states to prevent, avoid, reduce, or mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

“If lives and livelihoods are to be protected, if we want to avoid utter catastrophe, there simply is no time to lose. As has often been said, we are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change, and undoubtedly, we are the last generation that can do something about it.”

Awan continued, “For the human race, ignoring the climate emergency is no longer an option.”

We Are Facing Existential Threat—Nauru

Island country Nauru argues that climate change poses an existential threat to its security and well-being, highlighting the impact of rising sea levels, coastal erosion and drought at the UN court.

The island is a mere 21 km² (8.1 sq mi), oval-shaped island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.

Representing Nauru Lionel Rouwen Aingimea, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, emphasized the obligations of states in respect of climate change to be the obligations found in the principles of general international law.

“We urge this court to clarify the scope of the existing obligations of states with respect to climate change,” Aingimea said. “No more, but certainly no less, we seek your affirmation that the law protects the vulnerable and that our fundamental rights under general international law—to exist, to thrive, to safeguard our land—are upheld and respected.”

He urged the court to deliver an advisory opinion that reflects “the urgency, the dignity and the right of all peoples to exist in security.”

Island countries’ vulnerability was central to New Zealand’s arguments. Representing Pacific Island countries, Victoria Hallum, Deputy Secretary Multilateral and Legal Affairs Group at New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs and Trade ministry, emphasized the urgent need to address anthropogenic climate change. It said climate change was the single greatest threat to the Pacific Island regions.

Armed Conflict and Climate Change Connected—Palestine

The State of Palestine highlighted the intersection of climate change and international law, particularly the impacts of armed conflict and military activities.

Palestine positioned itself as a key contributor to the proceedings and referred to the ICJ’s advisory opinion on nuclear weapons to support its argument on the relationship between environmental protection and international law in armed conflict.

At the ICJ hearing, Ammar Hijazi, Ambassador of Palestine to International Organizations in The Hague, linked the relationship between climate change and emissions during armed conflict.

“The State of Palestine is responsible for less than 0.001% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet Palestine now grapples with unprecedented severe climate events, mainly due to Israel’s occupation and policies and practices,” Hijazi said. “Israel’s occupation curtails our ability to support climate policy. As a party to the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, Palestine is taking action to reduce 17.5 percent of its GHG by 2040, when our goal could be 26.6 percent if Israel’s occupation ends.”

Palestine argued that the court should not miss the opportunity to address the relation, obligation and rights of the people in the context of armed conflict and climate change in the historic opinion it will issue at the conclusion of these advisory proceedings. “This will fulfill the promise not to leave anyone behind and ensure that law applies to all,” Hijazi said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Excerpt:

Guards at a Nauru refugee detention centre managed by the Australian government traded marijuana for sexual favours from detainees, according to the latest damning report into the Australia’s beleaguered refugee policy.

The report into the Regional Processing Centre on tiny Micronesian island Nauru, found evidence of rape, sexual assault of minors, and numerous other transgressions both by detainees and centre staff.

Australia’s controversial policy of mandatory detention for arriving refugees, often in offshore facilities, has come under fire in recent weeks. The release of another report into refugee detention centres saw the Australian Human Rights Commission label the Nauru and Christmas Island facilities “dangerous” and “distressing.”

A further report by United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Méndez, stated Australia’s treatment of refugees in such centres breached the U.N.’s Convention Against Torture.

The Nauru report, released Friday, found evidence of sexual and physical assaults in the centre, but states figures for such crimes were likely much higher than stated due to under-reporting by victims.

Refugees told investigators they did not report particular incidents “because they had lost confidence that anything would be done about their complaints.”

The review said centre staff “in the most part, acted appropriately” in dealing with complaints and referrals to police, but that procedures to report, respond to or mitigate serious incidents “could be improved.”

The impetus for the report came in September 2014, after Senator Sarah Hanson-Young of the Greens party alleged women detained on Nauru were forced to “expose themselves to sexual exploitation” for access to showers, other amenities, and cigarettes.

Minors told the review of guards had offered marijuana and other items for sexual favours, and had “been on duty while under the influence of alcohol.”

The report, with numerous sections heavily redacted, details several claims of guards demanding detainees show their naked bodies in exchange for longer showers, making “lewd gestures” and “improper sexual proposition,” and numerous instances of physical assault.

Between October 2013 and October 2014, 17 minors were recorded as having self-harmed at the centre, including attempted hangings, “an 11-year-old who swallowed a metal bolt and a rock,” three cases of lip stitching – with one minor claiming they got needles from guards – and a 15-year-old who ingested detergent.

The Government and Immigration Department were criticised for releasing on a Friday afternoon, on a day when the death of former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, was dominating the news cycle.

“I didn’t think this government could get that lower, but I tell you what – it’s pretty shameless,” Hanson-Young said of the report’s timing.

The report recommends greater training be given to guards on Nauru, a review of guidelines around sexual harassment, greater investigation by the Australian government into such incidents reported in the review, the establishment of “a robust child protection framework,” and better frameworks for prevention of such incidents.

Follow Josh Butler on Twitter @JoshButler

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

Sea level rise threatens Raolo island in the Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 11 2013 (IPS)

Threatened by rising seas, some of the world’s small island developing states (SIDS) are demanding that the U.N.’s new set of Sustainable Development Goals place a high priority on the protection of oceans and marine resources.

A growing number of SIDS, including Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Maldives, Tonga, Nauru and Kiribati, are making a strong case for a stand-alone goal for the protection of oceans in the post-2015 development agenda known as the SDGs, which is currently under discussion."There is absolutely no way that humanity can have a sustainable future without healthy oceans." -- Cyrie Sendashonga of IUCN

Hassan Hussain Shihab, first secretary of the Maldives diplomatic mission to the U.N., told IPS that oceans are a priority for the Indian Ocean island nation, whose 339,000 citizens are threatened by sea-level rise.

“The establishment of an SDG dedicated to oceans is critical to Maldives as the oceans are our source of life, livelihood and the identity of the people,” he said.

Covering more than 70 percent of our planet’s surface, he said, oceans play a key role in supporting life on earth.

“They regulate our climate, provide us with natural resources and are essential for international trade, recreation and cultural activities,” he said. “We therefore strongly call for the creation of a Sustainable Development Goal for oceans, which covers the coasts, the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and the high seas.”

Mark Neo, deputy permanent representative of Singapore, told IPS oceans are also the economic lifeblood of his country, also one of the 52 designated SIDS.

“As an entrepot, we are highly dependent on maritime trade. And oceans are a precious resource and there are many users of the oceans,” he said.

“We believe that given the many demands on the oceans and its resources, the conservation and sustainable use of oceans and seas and of their resources for sustainable development is important,” he added.

Neo said the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea must form the legal framework of any sustainable development goal on oceans.

Addressing the General Assembly in September, King Tupou VI of Tonga told delegates, “Tonga joins SIDS in calling for the inclusion of climate change as a cross-cutting issue of SDGs.

“Oceans are a thematic priority and should also be prominently featured in the SDGs and the post-2015 agenda,” he said.

The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Winston Baldwin Spencer, has called for greater international support for SIDS.

“It is a recognised fact, but it is worth repeating, that SIDS contribute the least to the causes of climate change, yet we suffer the most from its effects,” he told delegates during the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) sessions in September.

He said small island states have expressed “our profound disappointment at the lack of tangible action.”

The current president of 193-member UNGA, Ambassador John Ashe of Antigua and Barbuda, has expressed his strong support for sustainable development.

His spokesperson Afaf Konja told IPS the UNGA president was “very keen on the issue” and is fully aware of the importance of oceans on SDGs.

She said oceans are expected to be high on the agenda of the open working group (OWG) currently negotiating SDGs and the post-2015 economic agenda.

The OWG is expected to complete its work in mid-2014 and its final report, with a new set of SDGs, will go before a meeting of world leaders in New York in September 2015.

Cyrie Sendashonga, global policy director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told IPS healthy oceans are essential to sustainable development, supplying food, oxygen, carbon storage and other vital services for humanity.

Oceans are front and central in the quest for sustainable development and deserve their own Sustainable Development Goal, she added.

“There is absolutely no way that humanity can have a sustainable future without healthy oceans as they play a vital role in ensuring critical ecological and geological processes, and in sustaining livelihoods and human well-being in general,” Sendashonga said at a U.N. seminar last month.

Any discussions in the SDGs and the post-2015 development agenda processes have to take this into account, she said.

As the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clearly documents, 90 percent of the climate change energy, since 1971, has actually gone into the ocean in the form of ocean warming, and warming may have started as far back at the 1870s, Sendashonga pointed out.

Overfishing, pollution and increasing nutrient levels compound these effects, weakening food webs and ecosystem integrity.

“Urgent and far more ambitious actions are therefore needed to keep pace with the changes in the ocean,” she said.

A Pacific island nation with a tiny population of about 100,800, Kiribati is one of the many SIDS in danger of being wiped off the face of the earth because of rising sea levels.

“Healthy oceans are critical for delivering on the U.N.’s post-2015 development goals,” said Ambassador Makurita Baaro, permanent representative of Kiribati.

“We have to be the most studied, most researched and the most media-covered nation relating to climate change,” she told delegates last week at a meeting of the U.N.’s social and economic committee.

Sea levels are rising, coastlines are being eroded, and extreme weather events were growing more common, she said, even as the United Nations was providing large-scale humanitarian assistance to thousands of victims of a typhoon that devastated parts of Philippines over the weekend.

Australians protest in Sydney against the new 'PNG Solution' for asylum seekers. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Aug 5 2013 (IPS)

The Australian asylum policy of rejecting boat arrivals has been condemned by the United Nations Refugee Agency, Pacific island leaders, migration experts and human rights organisations.

A new Regional Settlement Arrangement agreed between Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, announced less than two months ahead of an Australian national election, will see the removal of asylum seekers for refugee processing and resettlement in the neighbouring Pacific Island state of Papua New Guinea (PNG) located north of Australia, for an initial period of one year.

At least 70 asylum seekers have already been flown to the PNG-based Manus Island detention centre under the new deal.

On Aug. 3, Australia announced a similar arrangement with the tiny 21-square-kilometre South Pacific nation of Nauru, situated 4,500 km north-east of Australia, which also hosts an Australian offshore asylum seeker detention centre. According to an official Nauru spokesperson refugees will have temporary residence only.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said it was “troubled by the absence of adequate protection standards and safeguards for asylum seekers and refugees in Papua New Guinea,” and that the new arrangement “raises serious and, so far, unanswered protection questions.”

It said poor administrative capacity and physical conditions for refugees are likely to be “harmful to the physical and psycho-social wellbeing of transferees, particularly families and children.”

The UNHCR reiterated that countries should “grant protection within their own territory, regardless of how [refugees] have arrived.”

PNG, a Melanesian nation of seven million, is signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, but has reservations on the rights of refugees to basic services such as employment, housing and education.

The country is ranked 156 out of 187 countries for development, and has limited capacity to absorb tens of thousands of additional refugees from another state.

In exchange for taking Australia’s asylum seekers, PNG will receive an additional aid package worth 507.2 million Australian dollars (452 million U.S. dollars).

According to Australia, the new policy aims to stop people smugglers and deter refugees from taking dangerous journeys in unseaworthy vessels.

However, Hadi, an asylum seeker from Afghanistan who arrived by boat and settled as a refugee in Australia in 2011, told IPS that the new arrangement was an “election stunt using people who have no voice.

“It will not make any difference. People who are getting on boats are desperate. They are leaving their countries to survive,” he declared.

In August last year, Australia announced a ‘no advantage’ immigration policy directed at asylum seekers and announced it was reinstating offshore detention centres in PNG and Nauru. But unannounced maritime arrivals have increased rather than decreased, with 17,202 last year and about 15,000 so far in 2013.

The number of asylum seekers that Australia receives is very low. Last year 15,790 or three percent of the total of 479,270 global asylum applications were lodged in the country, compared to the United States which received 83,430, or 17 percent of the world share, and Germany and France which received 64,540 and 54,940 respectively.

Most of those arriving in Australia originate from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Sri Lanka, and 90 percent are recognised as refugees.

Will Jones at the Refugee Studies Centre of the University of Oxford told IPS that given Australia’s minor share of the world’s asylum seekers, the new policy was “completely disproportionate, extraordinarily expensive, and inefficient” for processing refugees.

In 2011-2012, Australia’s Department of Immigration incurred expenses of 1.4 million Australian dollars (1.2 million U.S. dollars) for offshore asylum seeker management, almost half the department’s total costs, compared to 95,272 Australian dollars (85 million U.S. dollars) spent on managing asylum seeker processing within Australia.

Refugee organisations have said that the new strategy jeopardises the protection of vulnerable people already suffering from trauma and displacement, who face an unacceptably poor framework of support.

At present asylum seekers are detained in makeshift facilities designed for approximately 500 people on Manus Island. Last month, following an inspection, the UNHCR reported that “the current arrangements still do not meet international protection standards for the reception and treatment of asylum seekers.”

It reported harsh living conditions and poor standards of privacy, hygiene and access to medical services.

The Australian government claims it will complete a permanent detention centre on the island in 2014 and meet the costs of the new settlement policy, but PNG will be responsible for all refugee assessments.

Dr Ray Anere of the National Research Institute in PNG capital Port Moresby said the country is yet to establish a legal framework, national policy and adequate administrative mechanisms to address the needs of asylum seekers, as well as “provision of proper medical, accommodation and other basic services.”

PNG currently hosts an estimated refugee population of 9,500 with many entirely dependent on support from humanitarian and charitable organisations. They are especially vulnerable to high levels of human insecurity in a nation facing serious domestic challenges of basic service delivery, high unemployment and crime, widely prevalent gender violence and inadequate law enforcement.

Unaccompanied minors arriving by boat face particular risks following the Australian government’s assertion that they will not be reunited with families in Australia. This is despite commitments to the best interests of children under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and UNHCR’s settlement guidelines, which stipulate that no action should be taken to hinder family reunification for unaccompanied minors.

Resentment has quickly emerged in the south-west Pacific against the refugee settlement ‘deal’ as an unwelcome imposition on neighbouring small island developing states and an abdication by Australia of its humanitarian responsibilities.

There have been public denouncements by Fiji’s foreign minister, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, and former PNG prime minister Sir Michael Somare. PNG opposition leader Belden Namah has renewed a legal challenge to Australia’s asylum seeker detention centre, in the country’s Supreme Court.

Local political commentator Deni ToKunai, known as Tavurvur, told IPS that “opposition to the new arrangement is extensive in PNG,” and “the real source of division will come from the public sphere and be focussed on the key issues of processing and settling asylum seekers when the permanent processing centre is built.”

An inmate at the Manus asylum seekers detention centre in Papua New Guinea. Credit: Australian Department of Immigration

By AJ Correspondents
DOHA, Aug 1 2013 (Al Jazeera)

The first asylum-seekers sent to Papua New Guinea (PNG) under Australia’s tough new refugee policy have arrived in the Pacific nation, to be detained at the Australian-run processing centre.

Their arrival on Thursday formally brought into effect July’s bilateral agreement, known as the PNG Solution, where asylum-seekers trying to arrive in Australia by boat are sent to PNG for processing and resettlement, even if they are judged to be genuine refugees.

Australia’s immigration department said that the 40 asylum-seekers, mainly Iranian and Afghan men, were flown from Australia’s Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island on Wednesday night, accompanied by Australian police and medical staff.

Tony Burke, Australia’s immigration minister, said it showed that Canberra was serious about not resettling “boat people” in Australia.

“As of now there are the first 40 people in Papua New Guinea who are realising that the people-smugglers no longer have a product to sell,” Burke said.

“The promise of living and working in Australia, which is sold by people-smugglers before they push people onto the high seas, is no longer a product available.”

Military-led detention

The issue of asylum-seekers has featured prominently in the lead-up to the Australian election, due this year, which will pit the Kevin Rudd-led Australian Labour Party government against the conservative opposition, headed by Tony Abbott.

Both parties have promised a harsh stance, with Abbott unveiling rival plans for a military-led operation and detention for arrivals in a tent city on the South Pacific island of Nauru in Micronesia.

More than 1,400 asylum-seekers have arrived on 18 boats since the government announced its new stance.

Australia’s processing facility on Manus Island’s Lombrum Naval base can only house 500 people, but it plans to expand the centre to accommodate at least 3,000.

Burke visited the camp in July, in the wake of rape and torture claims, which he pledged to investigate.

The immigration minister said more people would be flown to PNG in the coming days, with an advertising campaign spelling out the policy in key transit countries like Indonesia and Sri Lanka to be stepped up.

Australia deal ‘cost 700 million dollars’

Human rights groups have criticised the state of existing facilities at Manus Island and the U.N. said last week that it was “troubled” by the decision to send asylum-seekers there.

The U.N. refugee agency highlighted “significant shortcomings” in the legal framework for receiving and processing asylum-seekers.

“These include a lack of national capacity and expertise in processing, and poor physical conditions within open-ended, mandatory and arbitrary detention settings,” the UNHCR said.

Australia resumed sending asylum-seekers offshore to Manus Island and the Pacific state of Nauru in 2012 in an attempt to deter record numbers of asylum-seekers arriving by boat.

Hundreds of refugees have drowned as they tried to make the perilous journey in recent years.

The first transfer comes as Peter O’Neill, PNG’s prime minister, outlined the costs of major projects Australia has agreed to fund as part of the deal.

O’Neill told The Australian newspaper that the total cost would be about 705 million dollars, with Australia contributing about 439 million.

Legal action

The project includes the rebuilding of a hospital and renovation of PNG’s universities, which will be jointly funded, the construction of a key highway between Lae and Madang, and a new court building in the capital Port Moresby which Canberra will solely fund.

O’Neill said his country had agreed to help because Australia was “our best friend” and “we are a Christian nation”.

“Our Christianity surely requires we exercise compassion, and exercising compassion surely means discouraging the evil practice of people-smuggling,” O’Neill said.

The agreement has angered the PNG opposition, which has launched legal action in an attempt to thwart the deal.

Opposition leader Belden Namah told Al Jazeera that the legal case would argue that the agreement was in breach of Papua New Guinea’s constitution on human rights and of the U.N. Refugee Convention.

Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.