Internationally, we are marking the 2025 Human Rights Day at a time of extraordinary retreat from human rights protection across the World. Every human right, every breach of human right and every advance in the protection of human rights must matter equally to us.

The frameworks for human rights protection are well established internationally reflecting the genesis of the international system in the horrors of the Second World War. Social, cultural, political, women’s, indigenous, children’s, and all fundamental human rights are well protected in international laws that have evolved since then.

What may seem like a paralysis in protection of fundamental human rights internationally today does not arise from the absence of protections in international law but from the fractures that characterise the international interstate system in a phase of severe disruption.

The significant advances in protection of human rights internationally arose from a rare postwar geopolitical consensus. That global consensus is dead.

Though the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have their origins in this context, it was not until 2008 that the UN made an explicit resolution on human rights and climate change stating that climate change posed a real and substantial threat to the full enjoyment of human rights.

The Pacific’s human rights story
When the Blue Pacific discusses human rights impacts of climate change, it is shaped by our lived realities. The fundamental right to life in the Pacific is persistently harmed by heat stress.

It is estimated that more than 1200 deaths annually are now attributed to heat stress.

The fundamental right to health is eroded by growing illnesses and diseases arising from rising temperatures. Across the Pacific, well in excess of 1000 deaths are already attributed to climate change related illnesses annually.

The fundamental right to water faces worsening pressures arising from sea water intrusion into ground water, more frequent and prolonged droughts and sewage contamination of water systems as a result of floodings.

The fundamental right to food is persistently harmed by rising surface and ocean temperatures and experienced through failed crops, subsistence farms destroyed by winds and rains, collapse of coral reef systems and with that oceanic foods.

Indigenous people’s rights are similarly persistently harmed as communities across Melanesia undertake climate change induced migration without corresponding transfer of land and other social and cultural rights.

In Tuvalu and atoll states these are likely to lead to more unsettling outcomes as their small and culturally compact communities get thinly dispersed across larger countries such as New Zealand, Australia and Fiji.

Policy choices are needed to respond to worsening human rights protection that are a consequence of climate change.

Climate change and human rights in Pacific education
The right to education is one of foundational rights in international law. Having access to continuous, safe and quality education is the foundation for the enjoyment of this right.

Every time a student misses school because the river that she crosses is flooded or at risk of flooding, that student is denied the full enjoyment of this right. Learning days lost are increasing in Fiji and Melanesia generally. This has lifelong consequences.

The more painful reality is that learning loss is felt so unevenly. It is often people in our poorest households who stay in most flood-prone areas.

In Fiji’s case it is also the case too many I-Taukei settlements/villages are in flood prone areas or in areas more likely to be cut off from school access roads and bridges.

The average day time surface temperatures has increased between 1-3 degrees Celsius across the Pacific within a space of four decades. It may be much higher in schools in urban areas. The safe classroom temperatures for children are 24-26 degrees Celsius at the upper end.

In many schools, classroom temperatures are well above 30C for days on end. The health impacts of prolonged exposure to these temperature are seen through general weaknesses, fainting, headaches and fatigue.

I know of no school that systematically monitors classroom temperatures. I have heard of schools closing down for a day or two when the risks of flooding are high. I have not heard of schools being closed when temperatures are in the mid-30s during periods of high humidity.

Quite shockingly, school building and major repairs are still being carried out in so many schools in exactly the same way as they were done 4-5 decades ago.

The human rights context in education is profoundly gendered. Some of these simply arise from the fact that decisions are made by male leaders.

When reconstruction of several schools in Vanua Levu happened a few years back, boys’ and girls’ hostels needed to be rebuilt following one of the recent cyclones.

The boys’ hostels were reconstructed within a year of two back-to-back cyclones. A 100 percent of the hostel boys were back in school.

The girl’s hostel took another year to be up and running. Only one girl returned to school from those who were resident in hostels during the cyclone year.

A whole generation of girls in the middle to high schools from one of the most disadvantages regions of our country and from some of the most economically disadvantaged communities had simply dropped out of school.

This is a story that repeats itself in so many ways each across the Pacific.

Health, human rights and climate change
As with education, universal access to the sufficient health care constitutes yet another core human right.

One of the worst and least understood aspects of the health and climate change interface in the Pacific is its impacts on mental health.

Following extreme weather events — mental health consequences linger for long periods and most intensely among young children. When winds pick up ever so slightly, many children in schools get frightened — scared — quietly reliving their trauma in full view of teachers who are poorly trained to understand what is happening.

But the health consequences of climate change are far broader. Influenza, dengue including in off seasons, leptospirosis are profoundly impacting our communities. Loss of concentration, performance and worsening learning outcomes are some of these harsh trendlines inside classrooms.

Growing food insecurity
The right to food is a core part of our global human rights architecture. A few years back I had the great pleasure of visiting several schools in Vanua Levu.

I have taught in Fiji’s high schools. I know what I am talking about in a deeply personal way. Nothing prepared me for this.

The numbers/percentages of children who came to schools without lunch was just shocking. Nearly a third of students in one the classes that I visited came to school without lunch that morning.

Rates of stunting rates of children in primary schools (in peri and urban areas) in Fiji can be as high as 10 percent. Stunting rates are much higher in PNG at nearly 50 percent — one of the highest in the world.

Nutritional deprivation leads to delayed cognitive development and over time harms performance. Damage from stunting has life long and intergenerational consequences.
How does climate change feature in this?

The most obvious one is that global warming impacts on our coral reef systems. There is a near collapse of oceanic foods across so many Pacific’s coastal communities.

Equally on the high lands of PNG, delayed precipitation, prolonged rains and droughts harm and overtime irreversibly erode food security. This has widespread consequences.

Food insecurity, gender violence and inter-community conflict are a growing part of the Blue Pacific’s climate story.

Human rights, climate change and cultural and political rights
Nowhere does climate change demonstrate the scale of its destructiveness as in our closest atoll state neighbour.

Tuvalu may be uninhabitable within 4-6 decades even with the adaptation measures underway. It is forced to contemplate the real prospects of near total loss of land. The state has taken protective measures by amending its constitution to preserve sovereignty under any scenario.

Fiji and fellow PIF members have undertaken to respect its sovereignty under any climate scenario.

Compared with PNG, Solomon Islands and Fiji where communities are being relocated, the human rights and climate story of Tuvalu is of a different order altogether. Land rights, cultural rights are rooted and grounded. They do not move when communities are relocated. Relocations are deeply disrespectful of all rights — including cultural, social rights.

It is indeed possible that its whole populations in time may come to be dispersed outside of Tuvalu — in Australia through the Falepili Treaty, in Fiji and in New Zealand. Small and dispersed communities will over time lose their language. They are over time likely to lose many elements of their Tuvaluan identity.

Indigenous and cultural rights are rooted to land and oceans in such deep ways. These rights are recognised as fundamental human rights internationally. Global warming and rising seas treat these rights with callous disregard.

From a 1.5 to 2.8C world
The Blue Pacific has to fight the battle of our lives to return the planet to a 1.5C pathway. No one will do this for us. All our economic forecasting today are based on 1.5C  temperature increase. But the reality is that we are on course for a 2.8C or perhaps even a post 3.0C world.

The consequences of a 3.0C future on human rights of people across the Pacific Islands are unimaginable. For a start, most of the existing infrastructure, school buildings , health centres, data centers are simply not built to withstand 450 km/h winds.

Most of the Pacific’s towns and settlements are coastal. Our entire tourism infrastructure is barely a few metres above sea level. In Melanesia alone there are more than 600 schools that need to be relocated and/or rebuilt.

Several hundred health centres need to be moved. These are estimates based on 1.5C — not twice that. The near total collapse of coastal fisheries is almost a foregone conclusion at anywhere above 2.0C. The silliest thing we can do as a region and as a people is to not prepare for a 3.0C world.

Shaping our story of hope
On the 2025 Human Rights Day, I have reflected on the broad and deep impacts on human rights that directly result from climate change. Ours is a story of hope.

On this day, then let me celebrate the extraordinary leadership shown by Pacific’s students who took the world to court — to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and won.

We owe such an extraordinary gratitude to Fiji’s Vishal Prasad, Cynthia Houniuhi, Solomon Yeo from Solomon Islands and that small group of university students at USP who decided to take on the world. We celebrate Vanuatu’s leadership on all our behalf. Collective action matters.

We make a difference as individuals. We make a difference as a people and as large ocean states. I urge that we deepen our shared understanding of the unfolding universe of elevated human rights vulnerabilities across the Pacific.

Sharing our stories, deepening our understanding of interlinkages between human rights and global warming and beginning honest conversations about things taboo are foundational starting points.

In universities, this may mean adding climate change and human rights legal studies so that graduates leave with a firmer understanding of the world they will enter into.

At medical schools, this means integrating climate change into how human health is studied and researched.

In social science schools, that means advancing our understanding of the rapid evolution of kinship, leadership and culture in traditional Fijian and Pacific societies in a climate changed context.

In communications and journalism programmes, this may mean preparing students to communicate climate crisis with humility, sensitivity and empathy.

As responsible employers, we may be able to lead by ensuring that human rights protection arising from climate change are as mainframed as is possible. Being able to provide the level of sociopsychological support to students and staff bearing the silent scars of slow onset or climate catastrophes would be another great start.

This may include, as well, the simplest of things such as allowing paid compassionate leave for staff to recover from climate change related extreme weather events. In the longer term, the employment laws of Pacific Island states will need to catch up.

I have advised many Pacific island countries to take a hard look at even their school calendar. Few schools measure class room temperatures today.

Our colonial legacy has shaped the school year. We today subject our students to their final examinations when the temperatures inside class rooms are the highest. We today pressure students to prepare for their exams in the months when the chances of catastrophic events are the highest and the chances of illness that are climate change induced are the highest.

A school calendar that is climate informed and that protects human rights in the education context is more likely to commence the school year in September (third term) and conclude exams by August (end of second term).

All of these things are within our gift. We do not need international conferences or even international assistance to do all of these as the changes needed are so simple and so basic.

Building blocs for advancing human rights in a climate changed world:

• First is that individual and communities need to know how their fundamental rights are impacted by climate change. This is a task for all of us — not governments alone.
• Across the region, so many laws and legislative frameworks need to be revised to reflect how climate change and human rights play out. How many hours should an agricultural worker or road construction worker be working when temperatures are higher than 1.5C.
• For employers and service providers, what are the human rights obligations in a climate changed context? What does the waiting room in a health care facility look like in a 1.5C temperature increase and in a 3.0 degree world? They surely cannot be the same.
• National human rights and legal settings need to pay systematic attention to human rights and climate change. This means ensuring that national human rights agencies and courts build up their capabilities to provide the necessary jurisprudence; and our citizens both supported and empowered to approach courts and relevant agencies.
• Internationally, the Pacific Island states including Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) are well advised to ramp up their presence internationally. The next decade must be the decade when the region pushes the boundaries of international law. The decade following that may just be too late.

A Pacific Pre-COP31
I am delighted to have been invited to deliver my remarks so soon after COP30 and well in time for reflections for Pacific’s preparations for Pre-COP31. This climate conference to be held in the Pacific next year will be a great opportunity to bring a consolidated understanding of how fundamental human rights are being harmed by runaway climate change.

Shape this well — together, respectfully and with humility. We can present our agenda for advancing human rights protection in the Pacific powerfully at this Pre-COP.

As a region, we need to begin to win the argument about climate change in the theatres of international public opinion. Lobbyists and interests groups — including much of the global mainstream media — so wedded to petro interests appear to be winning.

We need to tell our stories with clarity and with impact. We need to back that with strategic bargains in all our international relations. A Pre-COP in the Pacific gives us a real chance of doing so.

Thank you for marking the 2025 International Human Rights Day in this way.

This speech about climate change and human rights was delivered by Dr Satyendra Prasad, the climate lead at Abt Global and Fiji’s former ambassador to the United Nations, during the 2025 Human Rights Day on December 10 at the University of Fiji. It is republished from Wansolwara News as part of Asia Pacific Report’s collaboration with the University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The University of the South Pacific (USP) is at the heart of a global legal victory with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivering a historic opinion last week affirming that states have binding legal obligations to protect the environment from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.

The case, hailed as a triumph for climate justice, was driven by a student-led movement that began within USP’s own regional classrooms.

In 2021, the government of Vanuatu took a bold step by announcing its intention to seek an advisory opinion from the ICJ on climate change. But what many may not have realised is that the inspiration behind this unprecedented move came from a group of determined young Pacific Islanders — students from USP who formed the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

According to the United Nations background information, these USP students led the charge, campaigning for years to bring the voices of vulnerable island nations to the highest court in the world.

Their call for accountability resonated across the globe, eventually leading to the adoption of a UN resolution in March 2023 that asked the ICJ two critical legal questions:

• What obligations do states have under international law to protect the environment?
• What are the legal consequences when they fail?

The result
A sweeping opinion from the ICJ affirming that climate change treaties place binding duties on countries to prevent environmental harm.

As the ICJ President, Judge Iwasawa Yuji, stated in the official delivery the court was: “Unanimously of the opinion that the climate change treaties set forth binding obligations for States parties to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.”

USP alumni lead the celebration
USP alumna Cynthia Houniuhi, president of the PISFCC, shared her pride in a statement to USP’s official news that this landmark opinion must guide not only courtrooms but also global climate negotiations and policy decisions and it’s a call to action.

“The law is on our side. I’m proud to be on the right side of history.”

Her words reflect the essence of USP’s regional identity, a university built not just to educate, but to empower Pacific Islanders to lead solutions to the region’s most pressing challenges.

Why is the ICJ’s climate ruling such a big deal?         Video: Almost

Students in action, backed by global leaders
UN Secretary-General Antόnio Guterres, in a video message released by the UN, gave credit where it was due.

“This is a victory for our planet, for climate change and for the power of young people to make a difference. Young Pacific Islanders initiated this call for humanity to the world, and the world must respond.”

Vishal Prasad, director of PISFCC, in a video reel of the SPC (Secretariat of the Pacific Community), also credited youth activism rooted in the Pacific education system as six years ago young people from the Pacific decided to take climate change to the highest court and today the ICJ has responded.

“The ICJ has made it clear, it cemented the consensus on the science of climate change and formed the heart of all the arguments that many Pacific Island States made.”

USP’s influence is evident in the regional unity that drove this case forward showing that youth educated in the Pacific are capable of reshaping global narratives.

A win for the Pacific
From coastal erosion and rising sea levels to the legacy of nuclear testing, the Pacific lives with the frontline effects of climate change daily.

Coral Pasisi, SPC Director of Climate Change & Sustainability, highlighted in a video message, the long-term importance of the ruling:

“Climate change is already impacting them (Pacific people) and every increment that happens is creating more and more harm, not just for the generations now but those into the future. I think this marks a real moment for our kids.”

Additionally, as Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change, noted to SPC, science was the cornerstone of the court’s reasoning.

“The opinion really used that science as the basis for its definitions of accountability, responsibility, and duty.”

Among the proud USP student voices is Siosiua Veikune, who told Tonga’s national broadcaster that this is not only a win for the students but for the Pacific islands also.

What now?
With 91 written statements and 97 countries participating in oral proceedings, this was the largest case ever seen by the ICJ and it all began with a movement sparked at USP.

Now, the challenge moves from the courtroom to the global stage and will see how nations implement this legal opinion.

Though advisory, the ICJ ruling carries immense moral and legal weight. It will likely shape global climate negotiations, strengthen lawsuits against polluting states, and empower developing nations especially vulnerable Pacific Islands to demand justice on the international stage.

For the students who dreamed it into motion, it’s only the beginning.

“Now, we have to make sure this ruling leads to real action — in parliaments, at climate summits, and in every space where our future is at stake,”  said Veikune.

Vahefonua Tupola is a second-year student journalist at University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus. Republshed from Wansolwara News, the USP student journalism newspaper and website in partnership with Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Yet it was here in this Dutch city that Prasad and a small group of Pacific islanders in their bright shirts and shell necklaces last week gathered before the UN’s top court to witness an opinion they had dreamt up when they were at university in 2019 and managed to convince the world’s governments to pursue.

“We’re here to be heard,” said Siosiua Veikune, who was one of those students, as he waited on the grass verge outside the court’s gates. “Everyone has been waiting for this moment, it’s been six years of campaigning.”

What they wanted to hear was that more than a moral obligation, addressing climate change was also a legal one. That countries could be held responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions — both contemporary and historic — and that they could be penalised for their failure to act.

“For me personally, [I want] clarity on the rights of future generations,” Veikune said. “What rights are owed to future generations? Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again, and this is another step towards that justice.”

And they won.

The court’s president, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, took more than two hours to deliver an unusually stinging advisory opinion from the normally restrained court, going through the minutiae of legal arguments before delivering a unanimous ruling which largely fell on the side of Pacific states.

“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

After the opinion, the victorious students and lawyers spilled out of the palace alongside Vanuatu’s Climate Minister, Ralph Regenvanu. Their faces were beaming, if not a little shellshocked.

“The world’s smallest countries have made history,” Prasad told the world’s media from the palace’s front steps. “The ICJ’s decision brings us closer to a world where governments can no longer turn a blind eye to their legal responsibilities”.

“Young people around the world stepped up, not only as witnesses to injustice, but as architects of change”.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change Adaptation, Ralph Regenvanu, has welcomed the historic International Court of Justice (ICJ) climate ruling, calling it a “milestone in the fight for climate justice”.

The ICJ has delivered a landmark advisory opinion on states’ obligations under international law to act on climate change.

The ruling marks a major shift in the global push for climate justice.

Vanuatu — one of the nations behind the campaign — has pledged to take the decision back to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to seek a resolution supporting its full implementation.

Climate Change Minister Regenvanu said in a statement: “We now have a common foundation based on the rule of law, releasing us from the limitations of individual nations’ political interests that have dominated climate action.

“This moment will drive stronger action and accountability to protect our planet and peoples.”

The ICJ confirmed that state responsibilities extend beyond voluntary commitments under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement.

It ruled that customary international law also requires states to prevent environmental and transboundary harm, protect human rights, and cooperate to address climate change impacts.

Duties apply to all states
These duties apply to all states, whether or not they have ratified specific climate treaties.

Violations of these obligations carry legal consequences. The ICJ clarified that climate damage can be scientifically traced to specific polluter states whose actions or inaction cause harm.

As a result, those states could be required to stop harmful activities, regulate private sector emissions, end fossil fuel subsidies, and provide reparations to affected states and individuals.

“The implementation of this decision will set a new status quo and the structural change required to give our current and future generations hope for a healthy planet and sustainable future,” Minister Regenvanu added.

He said high-emitting nations, especially those with a history of emissions, must be held accountable.

Despite continued fossil fuel expansion and weakening global ambition — compounded by the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement — Regenvanu said the ICJ ruling was a powerful tool for campaigners, lawyers, and governments.

“Vanuatu is proud and honoured to have spearheaded this initiative,” he said.

‘Powerful testament’
“The number of states and civil society actors that have joined this cause is a powerful testament to the leadership of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and youth activists.”

The court’s decision follows a resolution adopted by consensus at the UNGA on 29 March 2023. That campaign was initiated by the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change and backed by the Vanuatu government, calling for greater accountability from high-emitting countries.

The ruling will now be taken to the UNGA in September and is expected to be a central topic at COP30 in Brazil this November.

Vanuatu has committed to working with other nations to turn this legal outcome into coordinated action through diplomacy, policy, litigation, and international cooperation.<

“This is just the beginning,” Regenvanu said. “Success will depend on what happens next. We look forward to working with global partners to ensure this becomes a true turning point for climate justice.”

Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The United Nations’ highest court has found that countries can be held legally responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions, in a ruling highly anticipated by Pacific countries long frustrated with the pace of global action to address climate change.

In a landmark opinion delivered yesterday in The Hague, the president of the International Court of Justice, Yuji Iwasawa, said climate change was an “urgent and existential threat” that was “unequivocally” caused by human activity with consequences and effects that crossed borders.

The court’s opinion was the culmination of six years of advocacy and diplomatic manoeuvring which started with a group of Pacific university students in 2019.

They were frustrated at what they saw was a lack of action to address the climate crisis, and saw current mechanisms to address it as woefully inadequate.

Their idea was backed by the government of Vanuatu, which convinced the UN General Assembly to seek the court’s advisory opinion on what countries’ obligations are under international law.

The court’s 15 judges were asked to provide an opinion on two questions: What are countries obliged to do under existing international law to protect the climate and environment, and, second, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts — or lack of action — have significantly harmed the climate and environment?

Overnight, reading a summary that took nearly two hours to deliver, Iwasawa said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions.

Iwasawa said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change.

‘Precondition for human rights’
“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

To reach its conclusion, judges waded through tens of thousands of pages of written submissions and heard two weeks of oral arguments in what the court said was the ICJ’s largest-ever case, with more than 100 countries and international organisations providing testimony.

They also examined the entire corpus of international law — including human rights conventions, the law of the sea, the Paris climate agreement and many others — to determine whether countries have a human rights obligation to address climate change.

Major powers and emitters, like the United States and China, had argued in their testimonies that existing UN agreements, such as the Paris climate accord, were sufficient to address climate change.

But the court found that states’ obligations extended beyond climate treaties, instead to many other areas of international law, such as human rights law, environmental law, and laws around restricting cross-border harm.

Significantly for many Pacific countries, the court also provided an opinion on what would happen if sea levels rose to such a level that some states were lost altogether.

“Once a state is established, the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail the loss of its statehood.”

READ HERE: The summary of the #ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change. https://t.co/7TWc7ifwfX pic.twitter.com/vVxxwpZpbX

— CIJ_ICJ (@CIJ_ICJ) July 23, 2025

Significant legal weight
The ICJ’s opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, advocates say it carries significant legal and political weight that cannot be ignored, potentially opening the floodgates for climate litigation and claims for compensation or reparations for climate-related loss and damage.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the International Court of Justice to hold each other to account.

The opinion would also be a powerful precedent for legislators and judges to call on as they tackle questions related to the climate crisis, and give small countries greater weight in negotiations over future COP agreements and other climate mechanisms.

Outside the court, several dozen climate activists, from both the Netherlands and abroad, had gathered on a square as cyclists and trams rumbled by on the summer afternoon. Among them was Siaosi Vaikune, a Tongan who was among those original students to hatch the idea for the challenge.

“Everyone has been waiting for this moment,” he said. “It’s been six years of campaigning.

“Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again,” Vaikune said. “And this is another step towards that justice.”

“The most pleasing aspect is [the ruling] was so strong in the current context where climate action and policy seems to be going backwards,” Regenvanu told RNZ Pacific.

“It gives such hope to the youth, because they were the ones who pushed this.

“I think it will regenerate an entire new generation of youth activists to push their governments for a better future for themselves.”

Regenvanu said the result showed the power of multilateralism.

“There was a point in time where everyone could compromise to agree to have this case heard here, and then here again, we see the court with the judges from all different countries of the world all unanimously agreeing on such a strong opinion, it gives you hope for multilateralism.”

He said the Pacific now has more leverage in climate negotiations.

“Communities on the ground, who are suffering from sea level rise, losing territory and so on, they know what they want, and we have to provide that,” Regenvanu said.

“Now we know that we can rely on international cooperation because of the obligations that have been declared here to assist them.”

The director of climate change at the Pacific Community (SPC), Coral Pasisi, also said the decision was a strong outcome for Pacific Island nations.

“The acknowledgement that the science is very clear, there is a direct clause between greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and the harm that is causing, particularly the most vulnerable countries.”

She said the health of the environment is closely linked to the health of people, which was acknowledged by the court.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Immediately after killing Fernando Pereira and blowing up Greenpeace’s flagship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, several of the French agents went on a ski holiday in New Zealand’s South Island to celebrate.

Such was the contempt the French had for the Kiwis and the abilities of our police to pursue them.  How wrong they were.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the French terrorist attack Little Island Press has published a revised and updated edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, first released in 1986.

A new prologue by former prime minister Helen Clark and a preface by Greenpeace’s Bunny McDiarmid, along with an extensive postscript which bring us up to the present day, underline why the past is not dead; it’s with us right now.

Written by David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, who spent 11 weeks on the final voyage of the Warrior, the book is the most remarkable piece of history I have read this year and one of those rare books that has the power to expand your mind and make your blood boil at the same time. I thought I knew a fair bit about the momentous events surrounding the attack — until I read Eyes of Fire.

Heroes of our age
The book covers the history of Greenpeace action — from fighting the dumping of nuclear and other toxic waste in European waters, the Arctic and the Pacific, voyages to link besieged communities across the oceans, through to their epic struggles to halt whaling and save endangered marine colonies from predators.

The Rainbow Warrior’s very last voyage before the bombing was to evacuate the entire population of Rongelap atoll (about 320 people) in the Marshall Islands who had been exposed to US nuclear radiation for decades.

This article is the first of two in which I will explore themes that the book triggered for me.

Neither secret nor intelligent – the French secret intelligence service

Jean-Luc Kister was the DGSE (Direction-générale de la Sécurité extérieure) agent who placed the two bombs that ripped a massive hole in the hull of the Warrior on 10 July 1985. The ship quickly sank, trapping Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira inside.

Former colonel Kister was a member of a large team of elite agents sent to New Zealand. One had also infiltrated Greenpeace months before, some travelled through the country prior to the attack, drinking, rooting New Zealand women and leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that led all the way to the Palais de l’Élysée where François Mitterrand, Socialist President of France, had personally given the order to bomb the famous peace vessel.

Robie aptly calls the French mission “Blundergate”. The stupidity, howling incompetence and moronic lack of a sound strategic rationale behind the attack were only matched by the mendacity, the imperial hauteur and the racist contempt that lies at the heart of French policy in the Pacific to this very day.

Thinking the Kiwi police would be no match for their élan, their savoir-faire and their panache, some of the killers hit the ski slopes to celebrate “Mission Accompli”. Others fled to Norfolk Island aboard a yacht, the Ouvéa.

Tracked there by the New Zealand police it was only with the assistance of our friends and allies, the Australians, that the agents were able to escape. Within days they sank their yacht at sea during a rendezvous with a French nuclear submarine and were evenually able to return to France for medals and promotions.

Two of the agents, however, were not so lucky. As everyone my age will recall, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, were nabbed after a lightning fast operation by New Zealand police.

With friends and allies like these, who needs enemies?
We should recall that the French were our allies at the time. They decided, however, to stop the Rainbow Warrior from leading a flotilla of ships up to Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia where yet another round of nuclear tests were scheduled. In other words: they bombed a peace ship to keep testing bombs.

By 1995, France had detonated 193 nuclear bombs in the South Pacific.

David Robie sees the bombing as “a desperate attempt by one of the last colonial powers in the Pacific to hang on to the vestiges of empire by blowing up a peace ship so it could continue despoiling Pacific islands for the sake of an independent nuclear force”.

The US, UK and Australia cold-shouldered New Zealand through this period and uttered not a word of condemnation against the French. Within two years we were frog-marched out of the ANZUS alliance with Australia and the US because of our ground-breaking nuclear-free legislation.

It was a blessing and the dawn of a period in which New Zealanders had an intense sense of national pride — a far cry from today when New Zealand politicians are being referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes associated with the Gaza genocide.

The French State invented the term ‘terrorism’
I studied French History at university in France and did a paper called “La France à la veille de révolution” (France on the eve of revolution). One of the chilling cultural memories is of the period from September 1793 to July 1794, which was known as La Terreur.

At the time the French state literally coined the term “terrorisme” — with the blade of the guillotine dropping on neck after neck as the state tried to consolidate power through terror. But, as Robie points out, quoting law professor Roger S. Clark, we tend to use the term today to refer almost exclusively to non-state actors.

With the US and Israel gunning down starving civilians in Gaza every day, with wave after wave of terror attacks being committed inside Iran and across the Middle East by Mossad, the CIA and MI6, we should amend this erroneous habit.

The DGSE team who attached limpet mines to the Rainbow Warrior did so as psychopathic servants of the French State. Eyes of Fire: “At the time, Prime Minister David Lange described the Rainbow Warrior attack as ‘nothing more than a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism’.”

Don’t get me wrong. I am not “anti-French”. I lived for years in France, had a French girlfriend, studied French history, language and literature. I even had friends in Wellington who worked at the French Embassy.

Curiously when I lived next to Premier House, the official residence of the prime minister, my other next door neighbour was a French agent who specialised in surveillance. Our houses backed onto Premier House. Quelle coïncidence. To his mild consternation I’d greet him with “Salut, mon espion favori.” (Hello, my favourite spy).

What I despise is French colonialism, French racism, and what the French call magouillage. I don’t know a good English word for it . . .  it is a mix of shenanigans, duplicity, artful deception to achieve unscrupulous outcomes that can’t be publicly avowed. In brief: what the French attempted in Auckland in 1985.

Robie recounts in detail the lying, smokescreens and roadblocks that everyone from President Mitterrand through to junior officials put in the way of the New Zealand investigators. Mitterrand gave Prime Minister David Lange assurances that the culprits would be brought to justice. The French Embassy in Wellington claimed at the time: “In no way is France involved. The French government doesn’t deal with its opponents in such ways.”

It took years for the bombshell to explode that none other than Mitterrand himself had ordered the terrorist attack on New Zealand and Greenpeace!

We the people of the Pacific
We, the people of the Pacific, owe a debt to Greenpeace and all those who were part of the Rainbow Warrior, including author David Robie. We must remember the crime and call it by its name: state terrorism.

The French attempted to escape justice, deny involvement and then welched on the terms of the agreement negotiated with the help of the United Nations secretary-general.

A great way to honour the sacrifice of those who stood up for justice, who stood for peace and a nuclear-free Pacific, and who honoured our own national identity would be to buy David Robie’s excellent book.

I’ll give the last word to former Prime Minister Helen Clark:

“This is the time for New Zealand to link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace and which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence. If our independent foreign policy is to mean anything in the mid-2020s, it must be based on concerted diplomacy for peace and sustainable development.”

You cannot sink a rainbow.

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The leader of the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has reacted to the election of the new pope.

Pope Leo XIV was elected by his fellow cardinals in the Conclave on Thursday evening, Rome time.

Leo, 69, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is originally from Chicago, and has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru.

He became a cardinal only in 2023 and has become the first-ever US pope.

PCC general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan said he was not a Vatican insider, but there had been talk of cardinals feeling that the new pope should be a “middle-of-the-road person”.

Reverend Bhagwan said there had been prayers for God’s wisdom to guide the decisions made at the Conclave.

“I think if we look at where the decisions perhaps were made or based on, there had been a lot of talk that the cardinals going into Conclave had felt that a new pope would need to be someone who could take forward the legacy of Pope Francis, reaching out to those in the margins, but also be a sort of a middle-of-the-road person,” he said.

Hopes for climate response
Reverend Bhagwan said the Pacific hoped that Pope Leo carried on the late Pope Francis’s connection to the climate change response.

He said Pope Francis released his “laudate deum” exhortation on the climate shortly before the United Nations climate summit in Dubai last year.

“The focus on care for creation, the focus for ending fossil fuels and climate justice, the focus on people from the margins — I think that’s important for the Pacific people at this time.

“I know that the Catholic Church in the Pacific has been focused on on its synodal process, and so he spoke about synodality as well.

“I know that there were hopes for an Oceania synod, just as Pope Francis held a synod of the Amazon. And I think that is still something that’s in the hearts of many of our Catholic leaders and Catholic members.

“We hope that this will be an opportunity to still bring that focus to the Pacific.”

Picking up issues
New Zealand’s Cardinal John Dew, who was in the Conclave, said the new pope would not hesitate to speak out about issues around the world.

He said they were confident Pope Leo would pick up many of the issues Francis was well known for, like speaking up for climate change, human trafficking and the plight of refugees; and within the church, a different way of meeting and talking with one another — known as synodality — which is an ongoing process.

“I think any pope needs to be able to challenge things that are happening around the world, especially if it is affecting the lives of people, where the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.”

Pope Leo appeared to be a very calm person, he added.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior has arrived back in the Marshall Islands yesterday for a six-week mission around the Pacific nation to support independent scientific research into the impact of decades-long nuclear weapons testing by the US government.

Forty years ago in May 1985, its namesake, the original Rainbow Warrior, took part in a humanitarian mission to evacuate Rongelap islanders from their atoll after toxic nuclear fallout in the 1950s.

The fallout from the Castle Bravo test on 1 March 1954 — know observed as World Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day —  rendered their ancestral lands uninhabitable.

The Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French secret agents on 10 July 1985 before it was able to continue its planned protest voyage to Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia.

Escorted by traditional canoes, and welcomed by Marshallese singing and dancing, the arrival of the Rainbow Warrior 3 marked a significant moment in the shared history of Greenpeace and the Marshall Islands.

The ship was given a blessing by the Council of Iroij, the traditional chiefs of the islands  with speeches from Senator Hilton Kendall (Rongelap atoll); Boaz Lamdik on behalf of the Mayor of Majuro; Farrend Zackious, vice-chairman Council of Iroij; and a keynote address from Minister Bremity Lakjohn, Minister Assistant to the President.

Also on board for the ceremony was New Zealander Bunny McDiarmid and partner Henk Haazen, who were both crew members on the Rainbow Warrior during the 1985 voyage to the Marshall Islands.

Bearing witness
“We’re extremely grateful and humbled to be welcomed back by the Marshallese government and community with such kindness and generosity of spirit,” said Greenpeace Pacific spokesperson Shiva Gounden.

“Over the coming weeks, we’ll travel around this beautiful country, bearing witness to the impacts of nuclear weapons testing and the climate crisis, and listening to the lived experiences of Marshallese communities fighting for justice.”

Gounden said that for decades Marshallese communities had been sacrificing their lands, health, and cultures for “the greed of those seeking profits and power”.

However, the Marshallese people had been some of the loudest voices calling for justice, accountability, and ambitious solutions to some of the major issues facing the world.

“Greenpeace is proud to stand alongside the Marshallese people in their demands for nuclear justice and reparations, and the fight against colonial exploitation which continues to this day. Justice – Jimwe im Maron.“

During the six-week mission, the Rainbow Warrior will travel to Mejatto, Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap, and Wotje atolls, undertaking much-needed independent radiation research for  the Marshallese people now also facing further harm and displacement from the climate crisis, and the emerging threat of deep sea mining in the Pacific.

“Marshallese culture has endured many hardships over the generations,” said Jobod Silk, a climate activist from Jo-Jikum, a youth organisation responding to climate change.

‘Colonial powers left mark’
“Colonial powers have each left their mark on our livelihoods — introducing foreign diseases, influencing our language with unfamiliar syllables, and inducing mass displacement ‘for the good of mankind’.

“Yet, our people continue to show resilience. Liok tut bok: as the roots of the Pandanus bury deep into the soil, so must we be firm in our love for our culture.

“Today’s generation now battles a new threat. Once our provider, the ocean now knocks at our doors, and once again, displacement is imminent.

“Our crusade for nuclear justice intertwines with our fight against the tides. We were forced to be refugees, and we refuse to be labeled as such again.

“As the sea rises, so do the youth. The return of the Rainbow Warrior instills hope for the youth in their quest to secure a safe future.”

Supporting legal proceedings
Dr Rianne Teule, senior radiation protection adviser at Greenpeace International, said: “It is an honour and a privilege to be able to support the Marshallese government and people in conducting independent scientific research to investigate, measure, and document the long term effects of US nuclear testing across the country.

“As a result of the US government’s actions, the Marshallese people have suffered the direct and ongoing effects of nuclear fallout, including on their health, cultures, and lands. We hope that our research will support legal proceedings currently underway and the Marshall Islands government’s ongoing calls for reparations.”

The Rainbow Warrior’s arrival in the Marshall Islands also marks the 14th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.

While some residents have returned to the disaster area, there are many places that remain too contaminated for people to safely live.

Republished from Greenpeace with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Vanuatu’s special envoy to climate change says their case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is based on the argument that those harming the climate are breaking international law.

The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries in relation to climate change, and dozens of countries are making oral submissions.

Hearings started in The Hague with Vanuatu — the Pacific island nation that initiated the effort to obtain a legal opinion — yesterday.

Vanuatu’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Environment  Ralph Regenvanu told RNZ Morning Report they are not just talking about countries breaking climate law.

He outlined their argument as: “This conduct — to do emissions which cause harm to the climate system, which harms other countries — is in fact a breach of international law, is unlawful, and the countries who do that should face legal consequences.”

He said they were wanting a line in the sand, even though any ruling from the court will be non-binding.

“We’re hoping for a new benchmark in international law which basically says if you pollute with cumulative global greenhouse gas emissions, you cause climate change, then you are in breach of international law,” he said.

“I think it will help clarify, for us, the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) process negotiations for example.”

Regenvanu said COP29 in Baku was frustrating, with high-emitting states still doing fossil fuel production and the development of new oil and coal fields.

What Vanuatu youth Vepaiamele Trief said… https://t.co/5cFNHhh5rd

— Ralph Regenvanu (@RRegenvanu) December 3, 2024

He said a ruling from the ICJ, though non-binding, will clearly say that “international law says you cannot do this”.

“So at least we’ll have something, sort of a line in the sand.”

Oral submissions to the court are expected to take two weeks.

Another Pacific climate change activist says at the moment there are no consequences for countries failing to meet their climate goals.

Pacific Community (SPC) director of climate change Coral Pasisi said a strong legal opinion from the ICJ might be able to hold polluting countries accountable for failing to reach their targets.

The court will decide on two questions:

• What are the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate and environment from greenhouse gas emissions?
• What are the legal consequences for states that have caused significant harm to the climate and environment?

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australia’s government is being condemned by climate action groups for discouraging the International Court of Justice (ICJ) from ruling in favour of a court action brought by Vanuatu to determine legal consequences for states that fail to meet fossil reduction commitments.

In its submission before the ICJ at The Hague yesterday, Australia argued that climate action obligations under any legal framework should not extend beyond the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.

It has prompted a backlash, with Greenpeace accusing Australia’s government of undermining the court case.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Vepaiamele Trief, a Ni-Van Save the Children Next Generation Youth Ambassador, who is present at The Hague.

“To go to the ICJ and completely go against what we are striving for, is very sad to see.

“As a close neighbour of the Pacific Islands, Australia has a duty to support us.”

RNZ Pacific reports Vanuatu’s special envoy to climate change says their case to the ICJ is based on the argument that those harming the climate are breaking international law.

Special Envoy Ralph Regenvanu told RNZ Morning Report they are not just talking about countries breaking climate law.

Republished from ABC Pacific Beat with permission.

Climate @CIJ_ICJ hearings day 1 recap:
🇻🇺called for climate justice, self-determination & accountability
🇩🇪 talks of climate leadership but argues against binding human rights
🇦🇬 exposed polluters hiding behind the #ParisAgreement to dodge accountability.https://t.co/PB86XFpwzA pic.twitter.com/KI1hOKAM0G

— Center for International Environmental Law (@ciel_tweets) December 3, 2024

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In the lead up to the inauguration of President Prabowo Subianto last Sunday, Indonesia established five “Vulnerable Area Buffer Infantry Battalions” in key regions across West Papua — a move described by Indonesian Army Chief-of-Staff Maruli Simanjuntak as a “strategic initiative” by the new leader.

The battalions are based in the Keerom, Sarmi, Boven Digoel, Merauke and Sorong regencies, and their aim is to “enhance security” in Papua, and also to strengthen Indonesia’s military presence in response to long-standing unrest and conflict, partly related to independence movements and local resistance.

According to Armed Forces chief General Agus Subiyanto, “the main goal of the new battalions is to assist the government in accelerating development and improving the prosperity of the Papuan people”.

However, this raises concerns about further militarisation and repression of a region already plagued by long-running violence and human rights abuses in the context of the movement for a free and independent West Papua.

Thousands of Indonesian soldiers have been stationed in areas impacted by violence, including Star Mountain, Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Intan Jaya, Puncak and Puncak Jaya.

As a result, the situation in West Papua is becoming increasingly difficult for indigenous people.

Extrajudicial killings in Papua go unreported or are only vaguely known about internationally. Those who are aware of these either disregard them or accept them as an “unavoidable consequence” of civil unrest in what Indonesia refers to as its most eastern provinces — the “troubled regions”.

Why do the United Nations, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the international community stay silent?

While the Indonesian government frames this move as a strategy to enhance security and promote development, it risks exacerbating long-standing tensions in a region with deep-seated conflicts over autonomy and independence and the impacts of extractive industries and agribusiness on West Papuan people and their environment.

Exploitative land theft
The Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice, in collaboration with various international and Indonesian human and environmental rights organisations, presented testimony at the public hearings of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) at Queen Mary University of London, in June.

The tribunal heard testimonies relating to a range of violations by Indonesia. A key issue, highlighted was the theft of indigenous Papuan land by the Indonesian government and foreign corporations in connection to extractive industries such as mining, logging and palm oil plantations.

The appropriation of traditional lands without the consent of the Papuan people violates their right to land and self-determination, leading to environmental degradation, loss of livelihood, and displacement of Indigenous communities.

The tribunal’s judgment underscores how the influx of non-Papuan settlers and the Indonesian government’s policies have led to the marginalisation of Papuan culture and identity. The demographic shift due to transmigration programmes has significantly reduced the proportion of Indigenous Papuans in their own land.

Moreover, a rise in militarisation in West Papua has often led to heightened repression, with potential human rights violations, forced displacement and further marginalisation of the indigenous communities.

The decision to station additional military forces in West Papua, especially in conflict-prone areas like Nduga, Yahukimo and Intan Jaya, reflects a continuation of Indonesia’s militarised approach to governance in the region.

Security pact
The Indonesia-Papua New Guinea Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) was signed by the two countries in 2010 but only came into effect this year after the PNG Parliament ratified it in late February.

Indonesia ratified the pact in 2012.

As reported by Asia Pacific Report, PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko and Indonesia’s ambassador to PNG, Andriana Supandy, said the DCA enabled an enhancement of military operations between the two countries, with a specific focus on strengthening patrols along the PNG-West Papua border.

This will have a significant impact on civilian communities in the areas of conflict and along the border. Indigenous people in particular, are facing the threat of military takeovers of their lands and traditional border lines.

Under the DCA, the joint militaries plan to employ technology, including military drones, to monitor and manage local residents’ every move along the border.

Human rights
Prabowo, Defence Minister prior to being elected President, has a controversial track record on human rights — especially in the 1990s, during Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor.

His involvement in military operations in West Papua adds to fears that the new battalions may be used for oppressive measures, including crackdowns on dissent and pro-independence movements.

As indigenous communities continue to be marginalised, their calls for self-determination and independence may grow louder, risking further conflict in the region.

Without substantial changes in the Indonesian government’s approach to West Papua, including addressing human rights abuses and engaging in meaningful dialogue with indigenous leaders, the future of West Papuans remains uncertain and fraught with challenges.

With ongoing military operations often accused of targeting indigenous populations, the likelihood of further human rights violations, such as extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, and forced displacement, remains high.

Displacement
Military operations in West Papua frequently result in the displacement of indigenous Papuans, as they flee conflict zones.

The presence of more battalions could drive more communities from their homes, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the region. Indigenous peoples, who rely on their land for survival, face disruption of their traditional livelihoods and rising poverty.

The Indonesian government launched the Damai Cartenz military operation on April 5, 2018, and it is still in place in the conflict zones of Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Nduga and Intan Jaya.

Since then, according to a September 24 Human Rights Monitor update, more than 79,867 West Papuans remain internally displaced.

The displacement, killings, shootings, abuses, tortures and deaths are merely the tip of the iceberg of what truly occurs within the tightly-controlled military operational zones across West Papua, according to Benny Wenda, a UK-based leader of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP).

The international community, particularly the United Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum have been criticised for remaining largely silent on the matter. Responding to the August 31 PIF communique reaffirming its 2019 call for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visit to West Papua, Wenda said:

“[N]ow is the time for Indonesia to finally let the world see what is happening in our land. They cannot hide their dirty secret any longer.”

Increased global attention and intervention is crucial in addressing the humanitarian crisis, preventing further escalations and supporting the rights and well-being of the West Papuans.

Without meaningful dialogue, the long-term consequences for the indigenous population may be severe, risking further violence and unrest in the region.

As Prabowo was sworn in, Wenda restated the ULMWP’s demand for an internationally-mediated referendum on independence, saying: “The continued violation of our self-determination is the root cause of the West Papua conflict.”

Ali Mirin is a West Papuan academic from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands bordering the Star Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and Green Left in Australia.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By David Whyte and Samira Homerang Saunders

Many in the international community are finally coming to accept that the earth’s ecosystem can no longer bear the weight of military occupation.

Most have reached this inevitable conclusion, clearly articulated in the environmental movement’s latest slogan “No Climate Justice on Occupied Land”, in light of the horrors we have witnessed in Gaza since October 7.

While the correlation between military occupation and climate sustainability may be a recent discovery for those living their lives in relative peace and security, people living under occupation, and thus constant threat of military violence, have always known any guided missile strike or aerial bombardment campaign by an occupying military is not only an attack on those being targeted but also their land’s ability to sustain life.

A recent hearing on “State and Environmental Violence in West Papua” under the jurisdiction of the Rome-based Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT), for example, heard that Indonesia’s military occupation, spanning more than seven decades, has facilitated a “slow genocide” of the Papuan people through not only political repression and violence, but also the gradual decimation of the forest area — one of the largest and most biodiverse on the planet — that sustains them.

West Papua hosts one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world, is the site of a major BP liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, and is the fastest-expanding area of palm oil and biofuel plantation in Indonesia.

All of these industries leave ecological dead zones in their wake, and every single one of them is secured by military occupation.

At the PPT hearing, prominent Papuan lawyer Yan Christian Warinussy spoke of the connection between human suffering in West Papua and the exploitation of the region’s natural resources.

Shot and wounded
Just one week later, he was shot and wounded by an unknown assailant. The PPT Secretariat noted that the attack came after the lawyer depicted “the past and current violence committed against the defenceless civil population and the environment in the region”.

What happened to Warinussy reinforced yet again the indivisibility of military occupation and environmental violence.

I’m stand in solidarity with West Papuans rising up against colonialism, racism, state violence, sexual violence, and environmental destruction.

West Papua’s “special autonomy” is another euphemism for control and exploitation ✊🏿🔥 pic.twitter.com/cvP7fp2Ml0

— K.Diallo ☭ (@nyeusi_waasi) May 19, 2021

In total, militaries around the world account for almost 5.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions annually — more than the aviation and shipping industries combined.

Our colleagues at Queen Mary University of London recently concluded that emissions from the first 120 days of this latest round of slaughter in Gaza alone were greater than the annual emissions of 26 individual countries; emissions from rebuilding Gaza will be higher than the annual emissions of more than 135 countries, equating them to those of Sweden and Portugal.

But even these shocking statistics fail to shed sufficient light on the deep connection between military violence and environmental violence. War and occupation’s impact on the climate is not merely a side effect or unfortunate consequence.

We must not reduce our analysis of what is going on in Gaza, for example, to a dualism of consequences: the killing of people on one side and the effect on “the environment” on the other.

Inseparable from impact on nature
In reality, the impact on the people is inseparable from the impact on nature. The genocide in Gaza is also an ecocide — as is almost always the case with military campaigns.

In the Vietnam War, the use of toxic chemicals, including Agent Orange, was part of a deliberate strategy to eliminate any capacity for agricultural production, and thus force the people off their land and into “strategic hamlets”.

Forests, used by the Vietcong as cover, were also cut by the US military to reduce the population’s capacity for resistance. The anti-war activist and international lawyer Richard Falk coined the phrase “ecocide” to describe this.

In different ways, this is what all military operations do: they tactically reduce or completely eliminate the capacity of the “enemy” population to live sustainably and to retain autonomy over its own water and food supplies.

Since 2014, the bulldozing of Palestinian homes and other essential infrastructure by the Israeli occupation forces has been complemented by chemical warfare, with herbicides aerially sprayed by the Israeli military destroying entire swaths of arable land in Gaza.

In other words, Gaza has been subjected to an “ecocide” strategy almost identical to the one used in Vietnam since long before October 7.

The occupying military force has been working to reduce, and eventually completely eliminate, the Palestinian population’s capacity to live sustainably in Gaza for many years. Since October 7, it has been waging a war to make Gaza completely unliveable.

50% of Gaza farms wiped out
As researchers at Forensic Architecture have concluded, at least 50 percent of farmland and orchards in Gaza are now completely wiped out. Many ancient olive groves have also been destroyed. Fields of crops have been uprooted using tanks, tractors and other vehicles.

Widespread aerial bombardment reduced the Gaza Strip’s greenhouse production facilities to rubble. All this was done not by mistake, but in a deliberate effort to leave the land unable to sustain life.

The wholesale destruction of the water supply and sanitation facilities and the ongoing threat of starvation across the Gaza Strip are also not unwanted consequences, but deliberate tactics of war. The Israeli military has weaponised food and water access in its unrelenting assault on the population of Gaza.

Of course, none of this is new to Palestinians there, or indeed in the West Bank. Israel has been using these same tactics to sustain its occupation, pressure Palestinians into leaving their lands, and expand its illegal settlement enterprise for many years.

Since October 7, it has merely intensified its efforts. It is now working with unprecedented urgency to eradicate the little capacity the occupied Palestinian territory has left in it to sustain Palestinian life.

Just as is the case with the occupation of Papua, environmental destruction is not an unintended side effect but a primary objective of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The immediate damage military occupation inflicts on the affected population is never separate from the long-term damage it inflicts on the planet.

For this reason, it would be a mistake to try and separate the genocide from the ecocide in Gaza, or anywhere else for that matter.

Anyone interested in putting an end to human suffering now, and preventing climate catastrophe in the future, should oppose all wars of occupation, and all forms of militarism that help fuel them.

David Whyte is professor of climate justice at Queen Mary University of London and director of the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice. Samira Homerang Saunders is research officer at the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice, Queen Mary University.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Climate justice and gender equality cannot be achieved separately, a Pacific women’s conference heard this week.

Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine said the climate crisis faced in the region and the world would make gender equality more difficult to attain.

“For example, we know that we cannot have gender equality without climate justice, and vice versa,” Dr Heine told delegates at the the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women gathered in the Northern Pacific for the first time in 40 years.

“Our aspirations are shared,” Dr Heine said.

“We have convened on Majuro because of one of those aspirations is the empowerment of Pacific women and girls in all their diversities and ultimately to reach gender parity in our region.”

President Heine said that for gender parity to be achieved, every Pacific woman’s ability, talent dreams would need to be harnessed.

“We must draw on the resourcefulness of Pacific women, rich in our diverse cultures and traditions, to map a way forward for us, tapping into our region’s diversity and creativity to find solutions that are embedded in our Pacific philosophies and world views,” she said.

“We know that the climate crisis will make achieving gender equality even harder — and that we cannot solve the climate crisis without gender equality.”

Women hit fastest, hardest
Heine said women were often hit fastest and hardest by climate impacts.

“They are the first responders of the family, responsible for ensuring that the family is taken care of and healthy,” she said.

“As climate change brings droughts, they are charged with securing water; when children or the elderly are affected by extreme heat, it is women who are the primary caregivers.

“In the Marshalls, where women often participate in the informal economy through the production of handicrafts, for example, we know that the material used for those handicrafts are at risk as sea levels rise and salt water inundates our arable land.

“Women are also central to the solutions to the climate crisis.”

Dr Heine said Pacific women had been some of the strongest voices for climate ambition at the international level while at home they were caretakers for solar panels, providing communities with clean energy.

She described them as being at the heart of securing climate justice.

Political commentators said this showed that regional leaders recognised the importance of gender equality and the meetings provided opportunities to collectively discuss how to advance their commitments to the issue at national, regional and international levels.

President Heine acknowledged that the Pacific had made what she described as remarkable progress on women’s rights on many fronts in recent decades.

“But these gains are far from consistent and much more remains to be done,” she warned.

Women’s health, gender-based violence, and climate justice were the themes for discussion during the conferences and highlight some of the key challenges Pacific women continue to face.

Dr Heine said all these issues aggravated the impacts of inequalities faced by women and girls as a result of existing social norms and structures.

She said the triennial conference and the Pacific Ministers for Women meeting were important platforms at which to unpack these and other barriers to gender equality.

Netani Rika is an award-winning Fiji journalist with 30 years of experience in Pacific regional writing. The joint owner of Islands Business magazine he is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

About 20,000 protesters marched through the heart of New Zealand’s largest city Auckland today demonstrating against the unpopular Fast Track Approvals Bill that critics fear will ruin the country’s environment, undermine the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi with indigenous Māori, and open the door to corruption.

Holding placards declaring the coalition government is “on the fast track to hell”, “Greedy lying racists”, “Preserve our reserves”, “Kill the bill”, “Climate justice now”, “I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues”, and other slogans such as “Ministers’ corruption = Nature’s destruction”, the protesters stretched 2km from Aotea Square down Queen St to the harbourside Te Komititanga Square.

One of the biggest banners, on a stunning green background, said “Toitu Te Tiriti: Toitu Te Taiao” — “Honour the treaty: Save the planet”.

Speaker after speaker warned about the risks of the draft legislation placing unprecedented power in the hands of three cabinet ministers to fast track development proposals with limited review processes and political oversight.

The bill states that its purpose “is to provide a streamlined decision-making process to facilitate the delivery of infrastructure and development projects with significant regional or national benefits”.

A former Green Party co-leader, Russel Norman, who is currently Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director, said the the draft law would be damaging for the country’s environment. He called on the protesters to fight against it.

“We must stop those who would destroy nature for profit,” he said.

“The vast majority of New Zealanders — nine out of 10 people, when you survey them — say they do not want development that causes more destruction of nature.”

Other protesters on he march against the “War on Nature” included Forest and Bird chief executive Nicola Toki and actress Robyn Malcolm.

RNZ News reports that Norman said: “Expect resistance from the people of Aotearoa. There will be no seabed mining off the coast of Taranaki. There will be no new coal mines in pristine native forest.

“We will stop them — just like we stopped the oil exploration companies. We disrupted them until they gave up.”

The government would be on the wrong side of history if it ignored protesters, Norman said.

Public service job cuts ‘deeply distressing’
In Wellington, reports RNZ News, thousands of people congregated in the city to protest government cuts to public service jobs.

Protesters met at the Pukeahu National War Memorial for speeches before walking down to the waterfront.

Public Service Association spokesperson Fleur Fitzsimons told the crowd that everyone at the rally was sending a message of resistance, opposition and protest to the government.

She accused the coalition government of having an agenda against the public service, and said the union was seeing the destructive impact of government policies first hand.

“It is causing grief, anguish, stress, emotional collapse,” she said.

“It is deeply distressing to the workers who are losing their jobs. They are not only distressed for themselves, and their families, but they are deeply worried about what will happen to the important work they are doing on behalf of us all.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

For more than 76 years, Palestinians have resisted occupation, dispossession and ethnic cleansing, culminating in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Yet in the midst of this catastrophic seven months of “hell on earth”, it is a paradox that there exists an extraordinary oasis of peace and nature.

Nestling in an Al-Karkarfa hillside at the University of Bethlehem is the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS), a remarkable botanical garden and animal rehabilitation unit that is an antidote for conflict and destruction.

“There is both a genocide and an ecocide going on, supported by some Western governments against the will of the Western public,” says environmental justice advocate Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh, the founder and director of the institute.

It has been a hectic week for him and his wife and mentor Jessie Chang Qumsiyeh.

On Wednesday, May 15 — Nakba Day 2024 — they were in Canberra in conversation with local Palestinian, First Nations and environmental campaigners. Nakba – “the catastrophe” in English — is the day of mourning for the destruction of Palestinian society and its homeland in 1948, and the permanent displacement of a majority of the Palestinian people (14 million, of which about 5.3 million live in the “State of Palestine”.)

Three days later in Auckland, they were addressing about 250 people with a Palestinian Christian perspective on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and the war in the historic St Mary’s-in-Holy-Trinity Church in Parnell.

This followed a lively presentation and discussion on the work of the PIBS and its volunteers at the annual general meeting of Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) along with more than 100 young and veteran activists such as chair John Minto, who had just returned from a global solidarity conference in South Africa.

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh’s speech at Saint Mary’s-in-Holy-Trinity Church in Parnell.  Video: Radio Inqilaab 

Environmental impacts less understood
While the horrendous social and human costs of the relentless massacres in Gaza are in daily view on the world’s television screens, the environmental impacts of the occupation and destruction of Palestine are less understood.

As Professor Qumsiyeh explains, water sources have been restricted, destroyed and polluted; habitat loss is pushing species like wolves, gazelles, and hyenas to the brink; destruction of crops and farmland drives food insecurity; and climate crisis is already impacting on Palestine and its people.

The institute was initiated in 2014 by the Qumsiyehs at Bethlehem University along with a host of volunteers and supporters. After 11 years of operation, the latest PIBS 2023 annual report provides a surprisingly up-to-date and telling preface feeding into the early part of this year.

“In 2023, there were increased restrictions on movement, settler and soldier attacks on Palestinians throughout the occupied territories, combined with the ongoing siege and strangulation of the Gaza Strip, under Israel’s extreme rightwing government.

“This led to the Gaza ghetto uprising that started on 7 October 2023. The Israeli regime’s ongoing response is a genocidal campaign in Gaza.

“[Since that date], 35,500 civilians were brutally killed, 79,500 were wounded (72 percent women and children) and nearly 2 million people displaced. Thousands more still lay under the rubble.

“An immense amount – nearly two-thirds – of Gaza’s infrastructure was destroyed , including 70 per cent of residential buildings, hospitals, schools, universities and government buildings.

Total food, water blockade
“Israel also imposed a total blockade of, among other things, fuel, food, water, and medicine.

“This fits the definition of genocide per international law.

“Israel also attacked the West Bank, killing hundreds of Palestinians in 2023 (and into 2024), destroyed homes and infrastructure (especially in refugee camnps), arrested thousands of innocent civilians, and ethnically cleansed communities in Area C.

“Many of these marginalised communities were those that worked with the institute on issues of biodiversity and sustainability.”

This is the context and the political environment that Professor Qumsiyeh confronts in his daily sustainability struggle. He is committed to a vision of sustainable human and natural communities, responding to the growing needs for education, community service, and protection of land and environment.

In one of his many books, Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment, he argues that in contrast to how Western media usually paints Palestine resistance as exclusively violent: armed resistance, suicide bombings, and rocket attacks. “In reality,” he says, “these methods have been the exception to what is a peaceful  and creative

Call for immediate ceasefire
An enormous global movement has been calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, to end decades of colonisation, and work toward a free Palestine that delivers sustainable peace for all in the region.

Professor Qumsiyeh reminded the audience at St Mary’s that the first Christians were in Palestine.

“The Romans used to feed us to the lions until the 4 th century,” when ancient Rome adopted Christianity and it became the Holy Roman Empire.

He spoke about how Christians had also paid a high price for Israel’s war on Gaza as well as Muslims.

Christendom’s third oldest church and the oldest in Gaza, the Greek Orthodox church of Saint Porphyrius in the Zaytoun neighbourhood — which had served as a sanctuary for both Christians and Muslims during  Israel’s periodic wars was bombed just 12 days after the start of the current war.

There had been about 1000 Christians in Gaza; 300 mosques had been bombed.

He said “everything we do is suspect, we are harassed and attacked by the Israelis”.

‘Don’t want children to be happy’
“They don’t want children to be happy, they have killed 15,000 of them in Gaza. They don’t want us to survive.”

He said colonisers did not seem to like diversity  — they destroy it, whether it is human diversity, biodiversity.

“Palestine is a multiethnic, multicultural and multireligious country.”

“Diversity is healthy, an equal system. We have all sorts of religions in our part of the world.

“Life would be boring if we were all the same – that’s human. A forest with only one kind of  trees is not healthy.’

Professor Qumsiyeh was critical of much Western news media.

“If you watch Western media, Fox news and so on, you would be told that we are people who have been fighting for years.”

That wasn’t true. “We had the most peaceful country on earth.”

“If you go back a few years, to the Crusades, that is when political ideas from Europe such as principalities and kingdoms started to spread.”

Heading into nuclear war
He warned against a world that was rushing headlong into a nuclear war, which would be devastating for the planet – “only cockroaches can survive a nuclear war.”

Professor Qumsiyeh likened his role to that of a shepherd, “telling the world that something must be done” to protect food sovereignty and biodiversity as “climate change is coming to us with a vengeance. So please help us achieve the goal.”

The institute says that they are leaders in “disseminating information and ideas to challenge the propaganda spread about Palestine”.

It annual report says: “We published 17 scientific articles on areas like environmental justice, protected areas, national parks, fauna, and flora.

“Our team gave over 210 talks locally, only and abroad, and over 200 interviews (radio and TV).

“We produced statements responding to attacks on institutions for higher education, natural areas, and cultural heritage.

“We published research on the impact of war, on Israel’s weaponisation of ‘nature reserves’ and ‘national parks, and a vision for peace based on justice and sustainability.”

When it is considered that Israel destroyed all 12 universities in Gaza, the sustaining work of the institute on many fronts is vital.

Professor Qumsiyeh also appealed for volunteers, interns and researchers to come to Bethlehem to help the institute to contribute to a “more liveable world”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz