Climate Court’ finds G-8 liable

BANGKOK—The Asian People’s Climate Court has found the world’s richest states guilty of breaking “a dozen” international agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), providing legal ground for reparation claims by poor countries hurt by climate change.

Filipino environmental lawyer Antonio Oposa Jr. said on Wednesday that an international legal team is ready to back countries that would seek damages against G-8 states for climate change-related damages following the findings of the Asian People’s Climate Court.

The Asian People’s Climate Court, presided by Thai Human Rights Commission chair Amara Pongsapich, based its verdict on the testimony of 10 witnesses, including two scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Thai and Bangladeshi farmers, a Nepalese mountain climber, a Filipino fisherman and an Indonesian women’s advocate in a two-hour mock hearing on Children of Asia and the Pacific v. G-8 on Tuesday.

“Defendants have threatened and continue to threaten petitioners’ right to life and the course of life, thus committing planetary malpractice resulting in intergenerational damages. They have broken about a dozen international agreements, for example, by breaching their duty not to cause harm or their obligations under the UNFCCC,”  Pongsapich said.

Joselito Tambalo, a Nueva Ecija farmer, related how earlier-than-expected rains ruined his onion and rice crops this year and how his province was hit by a tornado for the first time also this year, damaging farms and properties.

Among the highlights of the decision is the need for a global adaptation fund, and an invitation to the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) to appoint a Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Dimension of Climate Change to probe links between climate change-related harm and acts or omissions of specific states, and the legal obligations or liabilities.

It also invited the UNHRC to initiate the process for setting up an International Tribunal on Environmental Crimes.

Oposa, who acted as chief prosecutor in the mock trial, described the Asian People’s Climate Court as “an experiment to show that there is legal basis for developing countries to sue industrialized nations and demand reparation for damages resulting from climate change.”

He said a “group of international lawyers,” including some “top-caliber” US lawyers, are in the process of getting together to prepare for the case but are awaiting interested countries to file the case.

“Let me assure you that it is only a matter of time before these cases will actually be filed in the proper venues. It calls for a more serious approach by serious consideration by the OCC [overconsuming countries] in order to avoid all this litigation or more confrontational approaches to holding them liable, so we call on them to take the necessary political will,” Oposa said.

He concedes the task is daunting, since they would be up against the world’s most powerful states, but adds that it will “tell a story to the world, that a group of lawyers and a group of countries stood up to the OCCs.”

“Maybe we will [win], maybe we will not but we will tell the story to the whole world in a forum that would be based on procedure, in a logical, orderly fashion and based on evidence. Maybe 60 years from now when the word is cooking up and we are getting burned to a crisp, maybe our successors, our descendants will say, ‘Well at least we did something,’” Oposa said.

He said that if they “get lucky,” “maybe there will be a strong statement supported by law that these countries must take action,” but added that it would only have the force of “moral pressure.”

Oposa said no country has yet expressed interest in filing the case, possibly because of the legal expenses it would require, but among the possible  candidates are Bangladesh and some South African countries.

The G-8 countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia.