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The Ice Coalition
The importance of ICE - The case for an International Court for the Environment
The news this morning – 1st December 2009 – carried a now all too frequent report from a scientific survey about melting ice and its potentially devastating effect on sea level rise and climate change. But this one was particularly special. While some climate sceptics have chosen to argue that we need not worry because the ice sheet in Antarctica seems to be growing, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research –100 scientists from different disciplines who traverse and examine the area regularly – reported that warming seas are accelerating melting in the west of the continent.
What this could mean is that sea levels are likely to rise by 1.4 metres (4ft 6in) by 2100 as polar ice melts. This is even higher than previous estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the key source for climate research and, along with the melting of ice in the Arctic and the Greenland ice shelf, the future looks exceedingly bleak unless something is done urgently.
So what has ICE – the International Court for the Environment – got to do with the melting of the ice caps?
The answer is complex but critical to the success of the world-wide campaign against global warming. During the next two weeks, representatives from every government in the world will be meeting in Copenhagen to try and agree how to reduce their countries’ carbon emissions and by how much. Whether or not they reach a binding agreement, it is too soon to say. But if the planet is to be saved from catastrophe, they will have to reach a binding agreement very soon.
It would be great to think that reaching an agreement solves the problem. It will help, but politicians promises, however well meant, are not always delivered in the way we might hope. Nor is it always easy to decide exactly how they will be delivered – international treaties are complex and usually can be interpreted in many ways. The key word is ‘binding’ and this is the first reason we need an ICE. Without some way to ensure that the agreement reached is binding, there is a real danger that promises will evaporate into thin air.
But before it gets to enforcing the treaty, the first job of the ICE will be to interpret it and make sure that each and every country understands its responsibilities. Sometimes, this is not so easy. For example, if a British company makes a part for a car in China and then pays a Korean company to ship it to Japan where it is put into a car that it then sold to Brazil or the United States, on whose bill should the carbon used be put – the UK, China, Korea, Japan, Brazil or the US ? This may seem a small point but it will be huge when countries are asked to take liability for their carbon. Then again, if a country promises to take action but simply doesn’t deliver, to whom can other countries, companies or campaigners take the case to make then meet their obligations?
Without a global agreement, based on international law, agreements may not be honoured and the planet, or more critically, the people and other species who live on it, will remain in acute and increasing danger.
But there is another equally important and urgent need for an ICE. In a globalised world, decisions made in one country or by one company can impact, sometimes fatally, upon a community elsewhere. 25 years ago this week, an American company – Union Carbide – allowed a leak of toxic poisons to kill and bring long-term sickness to tens of thousands of people in India. Still today, children are born with the appalling deformities caused by the chemical leak. After a long fight, the people of Bhopal received some compensation in a settlement but it was hopelessly inadequate.
Still today, companies are dumping potentially hazardous waste in poor countries affecting communities who have no power to fight back. This year, a Dutch company paid $197 million dollars compensation to the Ivory Coast because it had been responsible for the dumping of toxic waste which killed 10 people and injured hundreds. But other communities do not have the power to fight back.
The ICE would enable communities, campaigning organisations and individuals, as well as countries, to seek environmental justice.
People ask why these cases cannot be brought before the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court. Firstly, environmental law is very specialised and does not fall within the remit of the International Criminal Court and secondly, the International Court of Justice is only open to complaints from States, not from communities or ordinary people who have suffered. Neither are these courts able to interpret and rule on environmental law, which is increasingly necessary.
So lawyers and environmentalists throughout the world have launched a campaign for an ICE that can take decisions to help save our world. There is little time left and we must all act together and follow the same rules.
It took ten years for the campaign for an International Criminal Court to achieve its objective of bringing those practicing genocide to Court. The campaign for the ICE must be even more successful if we are to save our planet and all the species which live on it, including our own.
1st December 2009
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