One year ago, the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
ruled, unanimously, that states have binding legal
obligations to protect global climate systems. It found that
a state’s failure to act, including through fossil fuel
production, consumption, new exploration licences, or
continued subsidies, may constitute an internationally
wrongful act attributable to that state.
It was the
outcome of a campaign Vanuatu led from the front, starting
with a group of law students at the University of the South
Pacific and ending in a unanimous opinion from 15 judges at
The Hague.
In May 2026, the UN General Assembly went
further, adopting a resolution led by Vanuatu that gave the
Court’s legal opinion political weight. By any measure,
this is one of the most significant diplomatic wins the
Pacific has ever delivered for itself and for the
world.
However, this global win does not rebuild or
restore a damaged water system. The political go-ahead does
not bring electricity to an isolated island community or
help farmers recover crops lost to saltwater intrusion. The
legal opinion does not reinforce coastlines against the next
storm or support communities facing repeated landslides and
floods.
An advisory opinion, however unanimous, even
with endorsement by the General Assembly, is a statement of
intent of what the law requires. It is not the finance, the
engineering nor the logistics needed to act on that law.
This is what is needed to move an international commitment
into practical applications that change lives.
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Vanuatu
and the wider Pacific have carried the hard part of winning
this fight in court: proving the moral case for decades and
now proving the legal case as well. What remains unproven is
whether the states most responsible for the current climate
crisis will treat a confirmed legal obligation any
differently than before.
The Pacific-hosted pre-COP
this October will be an important opportunity to explore how
legal clarity can translate into practical action and
finance. The Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF) is a test
case readily available. It is a Pacific-designed,
Pacific-led financing mechanism built to directly move
climate finance to the communities that need it, on terms
that make sense for small island economies.
The PRF is
designed to respond to a long-standing challenge: many
Pacific Island Countries are classified as middle-income
countries (MICs) and, therefore, struggle to access the
concessional finance available to poorer countries, despite
facing some of the world’s greatest climate risks. Faced by
this MIC conundrum, the Facility is built around
vulnerability measures and not only income levels.
The
legal architecture the ICJ has confirmed says that finance,
technology, and cooperation are not generous ‘extras’,
but are legal obligations. The PRF is where those
obligations are tested in practice: pledges made at the
pre-COP will demonstrate, in concrete terms, whether the
response to the ICJ opinion will be converted to meaningful
action or remain aspirational.
There is a version of
the next 12 months’ narrative where the Advisory Opinion
becomes a genuine turning point: cited in negotiating rooms,
referenced in finance decisions, used by Pacific states and
their allies to hold large emitters to standards no longer
disputable. There is another version where it becomes what
too many previous diplomatic wins have become, a landmark
statement that changes the conversation without changing how
finance flows.
This is also where the Pacific
countries’ energy transitions come into play. The Court
was clear that continued fossil fuel dependence, including
through exploration licenses and sustained subsidies, sits
within the range of state conduct that the legal opinion
addresses. For the Pacific, that finding strengthens the
legal and financial case for the region’s own shift to
locally generated renewable energy. And this is precisely
the kind of transition the PRF and the climate negotiations
are designed to drive. The obligation the Court confirmed is
not only about what major emitters must stop doing. It is
also about what they must now finance others to do as
well.
Vanuatu did not ask the international community
for sympathy. It asked the world’s highest court for a
ruling, and it got one that leaves very little room for
ambiguity. The Pacific has done its part. The Pre-COP in
Fiji and Tuvalu, and COP31 in Türkiye, are where we must
move from legal clarity to directing climate finance to
follow.
Kanni Wignaraja is UN Assistant
Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Asia and
the Pacific and Munkhtuya Altangerel is the Resident
Representative of UNDP’s Pacific Office in
Fiji.
