STOCKHOLM: A youth-led student group and a human-rights lawyer that took the issue of climate to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) received the Right Livelihood prize on Wednesday, dubbed an “alternative Nobel.”
The prize also honored Sudan’s humanitarian aid network Emergency Response Rooms, as well as a Burmese anti-corruption group and a Taiwanese champion of digital democracy.
Frustrated by slow global efforts to tackle climate change, 27 law students at the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu in 2019 decided to, in their words, “get the world’s biggest problem before the world’s highest court.”
The Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change’s (PISFCC) campaigning culminated in the ICJ in July this year delivering an advisory opinion that states have legal obligations to address climate change.
While not legally binding, advisory opinions carry political and legal weight.
