Climate justice advocates welcome the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice. Photo from the Facebook post of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, used with permission.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), informally known as the World Court, issued an Advisory Opinion on climate change on July 23, 2025, which affirmed that states have an obligation to protect the environment from greenhouse gas emissions, and they may incur legal responsibility should they fail to fulfill or ignore this duty. Here’s an excerpt from the ICJ’s decision:

States have a duty to prevent significant harm to the environment by acting with due diligence and to use all means at their disposal to prevent activities carried out within their jurisdiction or control from causing significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment, in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities…

Pacific nations and communities welcomed the opinion since they initiated the petition. It started in 2019 with 27 law students from the Port Vila campus of the University of the South Pacific (USP) who convinced the Vanuatu government to take the issue of climate injustice to the ICJ. Vanuatu worked with other Pacific governments to persuade the United Nations to approve a resolution in March 2023 asking the ICJ for its opinion about the obligations of states under international law to protect the environment.

The USP students who started the campaign formed the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), which grew into a regional and global movement. PISFCC leader Cynthia Houniuhi was among those who participated in the oral arguments conducted by the ICJ in December 2024.

The ICJ Advisory Opinion was immediately recognized as a historic intervention and a victory for humanity. Belyndar Rikimani, a student from Solomon Islands, explained the significance of the decision for the Pacific Islands.

What’s very special about this campaign is that it didn’t start with government experts, climate experts or policy experts. It started with students.

And these law students are not from Harvard or Cambridge or all those big universities, but they are students from the Pacific that have seen the first-hand effects of climate change. It started with students who have the heart to see change for our islands and for our people.

The USP lauded its students who led the campaign from the Pacific Islands to the ICJ in The Hague:

What began with Pacific Island law students from The University of the South Pacific has grown into a global movement demanding legal accountability for climate inaction.

We are incredibly proud that USP students played a key role in driving this movement alongside Vanuatu, transforming vision into purpose and advocacy into action.

This milestone reaffirms what the Pacific has always known: that our voices, cultures and futures matter! That international law can, and must, protect people and the planet.

This is a victory for our people, our land, and for the generations to come.

Transform Aqorau from the Solomon Islands summed up the implications of the ICJ Advisory Opinion for Pacific nations.

We now have the legal basis to seek reparations for climate harm. The door is open for Pacific Island states to demand compensation, justice, and meaningful climate finance — not as charity, but as legal right.

In Vanuatu, a victory march was held to celebrate the country’s Independence Day and its successful petition in the ICJ. Ralph Regenvanu, Minister of Climate Change, said in a press statement that the ICJ decision should be followed up with concrete actions involving global stakeholders.

The nations most responsible for emissions should be held accountable for any violations of legal obligations and they must also step up and lead in providing resources and support to aid those most affected.

A victory in the world’s highest court is just the beginning. Success will depend on what happens next through coordinated efforts across diplomacy, politics, litigation, and advocacy to turn this moment into a true turning point.

Professor Steven Ratuva from New Zealand noted the value of the ICJ Advisory Opinion and how this can be wielded by Pacific nations to demand action from developed nations.

While advisory decisions aren’t legally binding, the ruling has effectively reshaped the global climate change landscape by giving more power to small states, especially those in the Pacific, to hold the big polluting countries politically, morally, and financially accountable.

The power dynamics have shifted. This is a victory for Pacific people, and it deserves to be celebrated.

It gives Pacific states a more powerful platform to assert themselves in the global arena.

Miles Young and Ashley Bowe from the Pacific Community (SPC), which helped coordinate regional efforts to bring the issue to the ICJ, wrote this challenge to global institutions:

The distance to access the World Court has been a challenge for the region but the commitment by Pacific peoples to travel for up to three days straight to attend the ICJ proceedings is testament to the importance they attach to this issue. We must encourage the United Nations systems and global multilateral processes to come closer to the region so that our communities are better able to meaningfully access them in just and equitable ways now and into the future.

The ICJ received 91 written statements, while 107 oral statements were made to the Court in December 2024. Thirteen Pacific Island countries and eleven Pacific organizations also participated in the proceedings.