Politics & Law

When we sail a few tons of cargo across the Atlantic and encounter the large ships off Rotterdam that transport thousands of times more, we feel like a tiny David facing a system of Goliaths. But at the stern of the Tres Hombres and other sailing freighters flies the flag of Vanuatu!

According to the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, the heating and acidification of the oceans by increasing amounts of carbon dioxide constitutes pollution of the oceans. This is prohibited under the Convention on the Law of the Sea. This was unanimously established in May 2024 in Hamburg by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ISGH) in an expert opinion for the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS).

Vanuatu and the other states of the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS) took action in the UN General Assembly. In March 2023, the majority of the Assembly supported the request to bring climate change before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague without any dissenting votes: What are states obliged to do in the fight against climate change? And what threatens them if they fail to do so?

Discord, cacophony, intrigue – the debate surrounding the decarbonisation of the shipping industry is reminiscent of a disastrous theatre performance. The bone of controversy is CO2 taxes on fuels. The crucial question of whether so much nonsense really needs to be shipped around the globe is completely overlooked.

Vanuatu is fighting desperately to avoid being submerged by rising sea levels caused by climate change. The archipelago has secured a groundbreaking opinion from the International Court of Justice: climate protection is an obligation under international law. Now the US is taking steps to prevent a corresponding resolution from being adopted by the UN General Assembly.