Summary
- ICJ
ruled fossil fuel funding may violate international law. - States
responsible if they support fossil fuel projects or subsidies. - Fossil
fuel exploration licenses and consumption cited as wrongful acts.
In a late-Tuesday petition to the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights (IACHR), which was exclusively obtained, the petitioners claim
that their human rights have been violated by the government’s activities.
“The US’s actions over the past 50 years constitute an
internationally wrongful act that implicate its international responsibility,”
the petition to the Washington DC-based commission says.
The Organization of American States’ quasi-judicial IACHR
examines and looks into accusations of human rights abuses before reporting its
conclusions and suggestions to the states in question. Its suggestions are not
enforceable by law.
The request follows the release of two strongly worded
advisory judgments from two leading international tribunals regarding the
climate catastrophe. Fifteen out of the twenty-one young climate activists who
filed the historic federal climate lawsuit Juliana v. US , which was
essentially rejected last year, filed it.
The plea comes
after the publication of two strongly worded advisory opinions on the climate
crisis from two top international courts. It was filed by 15 of the 21 youth
climate activists who previously brought the groundbreaking federal climate
lawsuit Juliana v US, which was effectively dismissed last year.
“This petition is about truth and accountability,”
said
Levi, an 18-year-old petitioner who was eight years old when the Juliana case
was filed.
“For over 50 years, the US government has knowingly protected fossil
fuel interests while putting people, especially young people, in harm’s way.”
The latest file describes the various ways the young
petitioners have suffered as a result of the climate problem, much like Juliana
did. For example, Levi was raised on the barrier island of Florida in the
Indialantic. Dangerous hurricanes repeatedly forced him and his family to
leave; eventually, they were so severe and frequent that his parents concluded
that moving was their only choice.
“Part of why we left was so that my baby sister could grow
up in a home with a smaller risk of flooding,”
he said.
“One of the most
difficult moments was losing my school after it was permanently closed due to
storm damage.”
Levi and the other young activists claim that the United
States has violated the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man,
an international human rights document that ensures equality before the law as
well as economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as customary
international law.
The bid was made shortly after the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights (I/A court HR), a distinct human rights body that the US does not
recognize but that has the authority to make legally enforceable
recommendations, released an advisory opinion in early July. According to the
judgment, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man mandates
that nations set aggressive goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and
the climate problem poses “extraordinary risks” that are felt most by
already vulnerable populations.
“Before that happened, we had already been planning to file
this,”
said Kelly Matheson, deputy director of global strategy at the
non-profit law firm Our Children’s Trust, which is representing the
petitioners.
“The timing is pure serendipity.”
The US does not acknowledge the authority of the top court
from which the I/A court HR opinion originated, and it is not legally binding.
Nonetheless, the opinions can be used by international commissions and courts
to interpret the law.
“These young people were born into a climate emergency, they
were born into a rights violation, and they have lived every single day with
their right to a healthy climate system being infringed upon,”
she said.
“We
could get to a healthy climate system by 2100 if we make changes, but even
then, these young plaintiffs will live their entire lives without ever being
able to fully enjoy and exercise their right to a healthy climate system …
Their hope is that their children or their grandchildren might.”
Juliana v. US, filed in 2015, claimed that the government’s
pro-fossil fuel policies were a violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutional
rights. The action’s initiator, Our Children’s Trust, made a last-ditch effort
to bring the case back to life last year by requesting that the Supreme Court
permit the suit to go to trial in a lower court; however, their request was
turned down in March.
The latest lawsuit claims that the courts violated their
international legal duties by denying the young challengers access to adequate
remedies for the climate catastrophe, thereby causing them ongoing suffering.
What international human rights body received the complaint?
The group of young people who alleged that the U.S. violates
international law by supporting an energy system based on fossil fuels
submitted a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). This is the UN
body that monitors states’ compliance with the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights and looks at individual and collective complaints
regarding human rights violations by states.
The UN Human Rights Committee is one of the principal
international human rights bodies that can take complaints from individuals or
groups alleging violations of rights guaranteed under international treaties.
The complaint was made to the UN Human Rights Committee, an
international body that has the power to review alleged violations of human
rights by states.
