A landmark climate change case will open at the top UN court as island nations fear rising seas

Update A landmark climate change case will open at the top UN court as island nations fear rising seas
The Peace Palace housing the World Court, or International Court of Justice, is reflected in a monument in The Hague, Netherlands. (AP/File)
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Updated 02 December 2024
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A landmark climate change case will open at the top UN court as island nations fear rising seas

A landmark climate change case will open at the top UN court as island nations fear rising seas
  • Vanuatu is one of a group of small states pushing for international legal intervention in the climate crisis

THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The top United Nations court will take up the largest case in its history on Monday, when it opens two weeks of hearings into what countries worldwide are legally required to do to combat climate change and help vulnerable nations fight its devastating impact.
After years of lobbying by island nations who fear they could simply disappear under rising sea waters, the UN General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice last year for an opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.”
“We want the court to confirm that the conduct that has wrecked the climate is unlawful,” Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, who is leading the legal team for the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, told The Associated Press.
In the decade up to 2023, sea levels have risen by a global average of around 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches), with parts of the Pacific rising higher still. The world has also warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times because of the burning of fossil fuels.
Vanuatu is one of a group of small states pushing for international legal intervention in the climate crisis.
“We live on the front lines of climate change impact. We are witnesses to the destruction of our lands, our livelihoods, our culture and our human rights,” Vanuatu’s climate change envoy Ralph Regenvanu told reporters ahead of the hearing.
Any decision by the court would be non-binding advice and unable to directly force wealthy nations into action to help struggling countries. Yet it would be more than just a powerful symbol since it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits.
On Sunday, ahead of the hearing, advocacy groups will bring together environmental organizations from around the world. Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change — who first developed the idea of requesting an advisory opinion — together with World Youth for Climate Justice plan an afternoon of speeches, music and discussions.
From Monday, the Hague-based court will hear from 99 countries and more than a dozen intergovernmental organizations over two weeks. It’s the largest lineup in the institution’s nearly 80-year history.
Last month at the United Nations’ annual climate meeting, countries cobbled together an agreement on how rich countries can support poor countries in the face of climate disasters. Wealthy countries have agreed to pool together at least $300 billion a year by 2035 but the total is short of the $1.3 trillion that experts, and threatened nations, said is needed.
“For our generation and for the Pacific Islands, the climate crisis is an existential threat. It is a matter of survival, and the world’s biggest economies are not taking this crisis seriously. We need the ICJ to protect the rights of people at the front lines,” Vishal Prasad, of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, told reporters in a briefing.
Fifteen judges from around the world will seek to answer two questions: What are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? And what are the legal consequences for governments where their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment?
The second question makes particular reference to “small island developing States” likely to be hardest hit by climate change and to “members of “the present and future generations affected by the adverse effects of climate change.”
The judges were even briefed on the science behind rising global temperatures by the UN’s climate change body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ahead of the hearings.
The case at the ICJ follows a number of rulings around the world ordering governments to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In May, a UN tribunal on maritime law said that carbon emissions qualify as marine pollution and countries must take steps to adapt to and mitigate their adverse effects.
That ruling came a month after Europe’s highest human rights court said that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change, in a landmark judgment that could have implications across the continent.
The ICJ’s host country of The Netherlands made history when a court ruled in 2015 that protection from the potentially devastating effects of climate change is a human right and that the government has a duty to protect its citizens. The judgment was upheld in 2019 by the Dutch Supreme Court.


Musk, with Trump at White House, says US will go ‘bankrupt’ without cuts

Musk, with Trump at White House, says US will go ‘bankrupt’ without cuts
Updated 15 sec ago
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Musk, with Trump at White House, says US will go ‘bankrupt’ without cuts

Musk, with Trump at White House, says US will go ‘bankrupt’ without cuts
  • Trump administration finds itself on a collision course with the US courts, as federal judges questioned the legality of White House cost-cutting measures
  • Musk, who also heads SpaceX — which has multiple US government contracts — and Tesla, said he is seeking to be as transparent as possible
WASHINGTON: Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been tapped by President Donald Trump to lead federal cost-cutting efforts, said Tuesday that the United States would go “bankrupt” without budget cuts.
Musk leads the efforts under the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and was speaking at the White House with Trump, who has in recent weeks unleashed a flurry of orders aimed at slashing federal spending.
In particular, Musk took aim at the country’s budget deficit, which topped $1.8 trillion in the last fiscal year.
He said that reducing federal expenses was not optional.
The remarks, however, came as the Trump administration finds itself on a collision course with the US courts, as federal judges questioned the legality of White House cost-cutting measures.
Trump’s sweeping plans, which have effectively shuttered some federal agencies and sent staff home, have sparked legal battles across the country.
Multiple lawsuits seek to halt what opponents characterize as an illegal power grab.
Asked about his conflicts of interest on Tuesday, Musk, who also heads SpaceX — which has multiple US government contracts — and Tesla, said he is seeking to be as transparent as possible.
The DOGE reform team has triggered alarm among critics as well by gaining access through the US Treasury to the personal and financial data of millions in the United States.

Turkish writer, son accused of fleeing after crash can be extradited, US judge rules

Turkish writer, son accused of fleeing after crash can be extradited, US judge rules
Updated 3 min 11 sec ago
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Turkish writer, son accused of fleeing after crash can be extradited, US judge rules

Turkish writer, son accused of fleeing after crash can be extradited, US judge rules

BOSTON: A US judge on Tuesday ruled that a Turkish author and her son can be extradited to Turkiye to face charges that he caused a reckless, fatal car crash in Istanbul and then fled the country with the help of his mother.
US Magistrate Judge Donald Cabell in Boston rejected arguments that Turkish novelist and poet Eylem Tok and her 17-year-old son, Timur Cihantimur, had not been charged with extraditable offenses, clearing the way for the US State Department to consider turning them over.
Further litigation is likely and could further delay their extradition, which Turkiye has been pursuing since their arrest in June as the mother and son were about to tour a private school in Boston.
David Russcol, Tok’s lawyer, said her attorneys “are evaluating Ms. Tok’s options for further judicial review of the serious legal issues involved.” Her son’s lawyer had no immediate comment.
According to prosecutors, the teenager was driving a Porsche on the night of March 1 when, while speeding around a corner, he crashed into a group of people on all-terrain vehicles. One person, Oguz Murat Aci, died and four others were injured.
Prosecutors said the teenager immediately fled the scene after saying something like “my life is over.” He was picked up by the family’s driver, and within hours Tok had bought one-way plane tickets for them to fly to Cairo, Egypt. They then continued on to the United States.
Their lawyers argued the teenager could not be extradited for the crime of causing reckless killing and injury because the US-Turkiye extradition treaty only covered individuals who are formally charged, while he was only facing an arrest warrant.
They also argued that Tok’s alleged offenses of concealing a cellphone that authorities viewed as evidence and protecting an offender by helping her son flee were not extraditable under that treaty.
But Cabell rejected those arguments. With regard to Tok’s son, he said it was clear that the term “charged” in the treaty did not mean a formal charge. “Rather, construed in the generic and more elastic sense, it is synonymous with accused,” he said.


16 Pakistanis killed in shipwreck off Libya: Islamabad

A migrant looks at the sea from the deck of the boat of the NGO Proactiva Open Arms on July 1, 2018. (AFP)
A migrant looks at the sea from the deck of the boat of the NGO Proactiva Open Arms on July 1, 2018. (AFP)
Updated 44 min 10 sec ago
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16 Pakistanis killed in shipwreck off Libya: Islamabad

A migrant looks at the sea from the deck of the boat of the NGO Proactiva Open Arms on July 1, 2018. (AFP)
  • “So far 16 dead bodies have been recovered and their Pakistani nationalities established on the basis of their passports,” a spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement

ISLAMABAD: Emergency workers have recovered the bodies of 16 Pakistanis after a boat capsized off the coast of Libya, with 10 others believed to be missing, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said Tuesday.
Thirty-seven people survived the accident, according to authorities.
The ministry first reported the accident on Monday. It said 63 Pakistanis had been onboard the vessel and 10 are still missing, according to unconfirmed reports.
“So far 16 dead bodies have been recovered and their Pakistani nationalities established on the basis of their passports,” a spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
“There are 37 survivors including 1 in hospital and 33 in police custody.”
A team from Pakistan’s embassy in Tripoli visited the coastal city of Zawiya to meet with local officials and those from Zawiya hospital.
“The Embassy in Tripoli is in the process of gathering further information and maintaining contact with the local authorities,” the statement added.
Each year thousands of Pakistanis pay large sums to traffickers to launch risky and illegal journeys to Europe, where they hope to find work and send funds to support families back home.
Pakistanis are frequently among those drowned on crammed boats which sink on the Mediterranean Sea separating North Africa from Europe — the world’s deadliest migrant route.
An official from the Federal Investigation Agency, speaking anonymously to AFP in 2023, estimated Pakistanis attempt 40,000 illegal trips every year.
In June that year the Mediterranean witnessed one of its worst migrant shipwrecks when a rusty and overloaded trawler sank overnight. It was carrying more than 750 people — up to 350 of them Pakistanis according to Islamabad — but only 82 bodies were ever recovered.

 


UK’s Princess Catherine visits women’s prison

Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, visits a mother and baby unit at HMP Styal, a prison and young offender institution.
Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, visits a mother and baby unit at HMP Styal, a prison and young offender institution.
Updated 49 min 29 sec ago
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UK’s Princess Catherine visits women’s prison

Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, visits a mother and baby unit at HMP Styal, a prison and young offender institution.
  • Catherine visited HMP Styal in northwest England to meet offenders who had used the services of a charity-run mother and baby unit

LONDON: Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, on Tuesday visited a women’s prison to meet ex-offenders and those still serving, as she continues her return to public duties having completed her cancer treatment.
Catherine visited HMP Styal in northwest England to meet offenders who had used the services of a charity-run mother and baby unit.
“It is great that you are looking at the mother’s wellbeing as well. The best thing for baby is to have a mother whose emotional needs and wellbeing is met as well,” she told staff at the unit.
Former inmate Sam told the princess that parental support was better in jail than outside.
“I only left six weeks ago and I am just getting rolling with everything again. I have said so many times that I just wish I could take this (prison) nursery and put it in my hometown,” she said.
Catherine, 43, who is mother to Prince George 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and six-year-old Prince Louis, has only recently begun a gradual return to royal duties after a shock cancer diagnosis last year.
It was the princess’s fifth public engagement in just over two weeks.


Ukraine prepared to offer territory swap with Russia: Zelensky

Ukraine prepared to offer territory swap with Russia: Zelensky
Updated 11 February 2025
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Ukraine prepared to offer territory swap with Russia: Zelensky

Ukraine prepared to offer territory swap with Russia: Zelensky
LONDON: Ukraine will offer to swap territory with Russia in any potential peace negotiations, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published Tuesday, adding that Europe alone would not be able to shoulder Kyiv’s war effort.
Zelensky will meet US Vice President JD Vance on Friday at the Munich Security Conference, the Ukrainian leader’s spokesman told AFP, as Washington pushes for an end to the nearly three-year war with Russia.
Vance has been a frequent critic of US support that has been vital to Ukraine’s war effort.
“There are voices which say that Europe could offer security guarantees without the Americans, and I always say no,” Zelensky told the Guardian newspaper in an interview published on the UK newspaper’s website on Tuesday.
“Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees,” he said.
Trump is keen for both sides to reach a deal, the terms of which are a source of concern in Ukraine.
Zelensky told the Guardian he would offer Russian President Vladimir Putin territory that Ukraine seized in Russia’s Kursk region six months ago.
“We will swap one territory for another,” he said, adding that he did not know which territories he would ask for in return.
“I don’t know, we will see. But all our territories are important, there is no priority,” he said.
Russia says it has annexed five regions of Ukraine — Crimea in 2014 and then Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia in 2022 — though it does not have full control over them.


Trump confirmed Monday that he would soon dispatch his special envoy Keith Kellogg, who is tasked with drawing up a proposal to halt the fighting, to Ukraine.
The US president is pressing for a swift end to the conflict, while Zelensky is calling for tough security guarantees from Washington as part of any deal.
Kyiv fears that any settlement that does not include hard military commitments, such as NATO membership or the deployment of peacekeeping troops, will allow the Kremlin time to regroup and rearm for a fresh attack.
Zelensky has said he would offer US companies lucrative reconstruction contracts in a bid to win over Trump.
“Those who are helping us to save Ukraine will renovate it, with their businesses together with Ukrainian businesses. All these things we are ready to speak about in detail,” he told the Guardian.
Ukraine has some of the biggest mineral reserves in Europe and it is “not in the interests of the United States” for those to fall into Russian hands, he said.
“Valuable natural resources where we can offer our partners possibilities that didn’t exist before to invest in them. For us it will create jobs, for American companies it will create profits,” he added.
The Munich meeting comes with Russia advancing across Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where over the past year it has captured several settlements, most completely flattened by months of Russian bombardments.