Students - Awareness - Seeds

In 2019, a group of Pacific Island students took a classroom idea on climate change and turned it into a massive global operation. This week, the UN world court answers their call.

Cynthia Houniuhi speaks fondly about her childhood growing up in one of the remoter parts of the Solomon Islands. Her earliest memories are of wading through warm seas to get to school, trapping wild birds with her older brothers, and sowing sweet potatoes and cassava. "I love planting vegetables, although I'm not really a fan of eating my vegetables," she laughs. "I can eat fruit all day."

It was only later that Houniuhi realised something was amiss. She recalls a particular trip to Fanalei, the island her father is from, where she was shocked to see houses standing deep in salt water. She learned that some families had been forced to move.

It was the beginning of an awareness of climate change that would shape the next years of Houniuhi's life. It would also help bring the largest ever climate case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), sometimes known as the UN world court. The ICJ, which is based in the Netherlands, is today due to give its advisory opinion on states' legal obligations to tackle climate change under international law, and lay out the consequences of breaching them.

It's the largest case the court has ever considered – but it began with the spark of an idea in a university lecture theatre.

Two other major courts – the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – have also been asked for such opinions, which are politically influential and set the framework for future legal action.

- Author: Isabella Kaminski, BBC

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