Pacific Students Force World Court Shift On Climate Justice
In 2019, a small group of law students scattered across the Pacific logged into an online class that would alter the course of global climate law. From islands already drowning beneath rising seas, they gathered at the University of the South Pacific to study international environmental law. Their professor, Justin Rose, challenged them to think beyond treaties that seemed to fail them.
What could they do, as citizens of nations losing their land, to make the world take responsibility for the damage it had caused?
Their answer reshaped history.
Pacific students initiated the ICJ advisory opinion on climate harm.
The Birth of a Movement
The students saw the erosion of beaches, salt invading farmlands, and homes collapsing into the ocean. From that sense of loss came an idea that began as an “optional extracurricular project.” They would ask the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to define countries’ legal responsibilities for causing climate harm. It was an audacious plan — one that had failed before. But this time, the drive came not from politicians but from youth who were living the consequences.
They called themselves Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), uniting peers from Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands. According to Right Livelihood, their goal was simple and revolutionary: to take “the world’s biggest problem to the world’s highest court.”
They wrote letters, lobbied Pacific leaders, and convinced Vanuatu’s government to champion their cause before the United Nations. What began in a single classroom became a worldwide campaign.
Vanuatu led the UN resolution to request the ruling.
From Islands to The Hague
In 2023, after years of diplomacy and organizing, Vanuatu secured a United Nations resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ. By then, the student founders had graduated and entered government roles themselves. They carried their movement into the institutions they once petitioned.
When hearings opened in The Hague, Pacific youth stood before fifteen judges, speaking for nations that may one day vanish beneath the sea. Cynthia Houniuhi, one of the original 27 students, addressed the court in both English and her native language, describing climate protection as a sacred intergenerational duty. Her presence symbolized the human cost behind legal text.
“We contribute almost nothing to emissions,” she said, “but our homes and identities are at stake.”
The ruling elevates customary international law in climate cases.
The Ruling That Shifted Climate Law
On July 23, 2025, the ICJ delivered its opinion. It confirmed that states have binding obligations to prevent climate harm, protect human rights, and repair damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions. The court declared that responsibility extends beyond the Paris Agreement to the entire framework of international and human rights law.
“I cried right there in the courtroom,” Houniuhi told The Guardian.
The ruling established that countries failing to act could face legal consequences, including reparations. For frontline communities, it provided a long-awaited “legal backbone for climate justice,” said Rufino Varea of the Pacific Islands Climate Network. Activists across the region saw it as both shield and sword — a moral and legal precedent that could transform international accountability.
Beyond the Verdict
For the students who began this journey, the fight is not over. PISFCC continues to pressure governments to align their national plans with the ICJ’s ruling, pushing for fossil fuel phase-outs and debt-free climate finance. Their movement has become a blueprint for youth-led legal activism, reminding the world that courage can come from the smallest islands — and that law, when driven by lived truth, can protect life itself.
“It’s not about us,” Houniuhi said. “It’s about everyone who deserves that win.”
