LONDON — Britain officially became the 12th member of a trans-Pacific trade pact that includes Japan, Australia and Canada on Sunday as it seeks to deepen ties in the region and build its global trade links after leaving the European Union.

Britain announced last year it would join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in its biggest trade deal since Brexit.

The accession means Britain will be able to apply CPTPP trade rules and lower tariffs with eight of the 11 existing members from Sunday — Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.

The agreement enters into force with Australia on December 24, and will apply with the final two members — Canada and Mexico — 60 days after they ratify it.

The pact represents Britain’s first free trade deals with Malaysia and Brunei, but while it had agreements with the other countries, CPTPP provisions go further, especially in giving companies choices on how to use “rules of origin” provisions.

The CPTPP does not have a single market for goods or services, and so regulatory harmonization is not required, unlike the EU, whose trading orbit Britain left at the end of 2020.

Britain estimates the pact may be worth $2.5 billion a year in the long run — less than 0.1% of GDP.

But in a sign of the strategic, rather than purely economic, implications of the pact, Britain can now influence whether applicants China and Taiwan may join the group.

The free trade agreement has its roots in the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership, developed in part to counter China’s growing economic dominance.

The U.S. pulled out in 2017 under then-President Donald Trump and the pact was reborn as the CPTPP.

Costa Rica is the next applicant country to go through the process of joining, while Indonesia also aims to do so.
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KYIV, UKRAINE — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that Russia has begun deploying North Korean soldiers to storm Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region.

Zelenskyy said in his evening address that he had “preliminary evidence that the Russians have begun to use soldiers from North Korea in assaults — a noticeable number of them.”

He said that according to his information, “the Russians include [North Koreans] in combined units and use them in operations in the Kursk region,” where Ukraine has been mounting an incursion since August.

Zelenskyy said he has also heard that the North Koreans “may be used in other parts of the front line,” and that “losses among this category are also already noticeable.”

Zelenskyy said last month that 11,000 North Korean troops were in Russia’s western Kursk region and had already sustained “losses.”

Washington and Seoul have accused Pyongyang of sending more than 10,000 soldiers to help Moscow, after Russia and North Korea signed a landmark defense pact this summer.

North Korea and Russia have strengthened their military ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Surprised by the Kursk incursion, Russia has since continuously clawed back territory, halting Ukraine’s advance and rushing reinforcements to the region.

A Ukrainian army source told AFP last month Kyiv still controlled 800 square kilometers of the Kursk region, down from previous claims it controlled almost 1,400 square kilometers.

Ukraine hits Russian oil terminal

Ukraine said Saturday it attacked an oil terminal in Russia’s western Oryol region overnight, sparking a fire.

The governor of Oryol said on Telegram that fuel caught fire at “a facility” in the region after a “massive drone attack.”

The Ukraine military’s General Staff said Kyiv’s forces attacked a major oil depot in Stal’noi Kon, about 165 kilometers into Russian territory.

“It’s one of the largest oil terminals in the suburbs of the city of Oryol” and is part of a “military industrial complex” that supplies the Russian army, the General Staff said.

Russian media showed images, purportedly of the attack, showing clouds of smoke billowing up into the night sky from a fire.

Oryol regional Governor Andrey Klychkov said Saturday on Telegram that Russian anti-air defenses shot down Ukrainian drones during the attack and that the fire was brought under control at 5 a.m., although it had not yet been extinguished.

He said there were no casualties.

Other developments

In Russia’s Belgorod region, which also borders Ukraine, a drone attack killed a 9-year-old boy and wounded his mother and baby sister, said Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

He posted photos of the family’s home with a huge hole in the facade and the roof partially torn off.

Ukraine regularly attacks military and energy infrastructure in Russia, sometimes deep into its invading neighbor’s territory, in response to Russian attacks on its own infrastructure.

Kyiv’s General Staff said Russia attacked overnight with 132 drones, claiming 130 of them were downed or failed to reach targets.

Russia’s military said Saturday that it shot down 60 Ukrainian drones overnight.
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BELGRADE, SERBIA — The United States plans to introduce sanctions against Serbia’s main gas supplier, which is controlled by Russia, Serbia’s president said Saturday.

President Aleksandar Vucic told state RTS broadcaster that Serbia has been officially informed that the decision on sanctions will come into force on January 1 but that he has so far not received any related documents from the U.S.

There has been no comment from U.S. officials.

Serbia almost entirely depends on Russian gas, which it receives through pipelines in neighboring states. The gas is then distributed by Petroleum Industry of Serbia, which is majority-owned by Russia’s state oil monopoly Gazprom Neft.

Vucic said that after receiving the official documents, “we will talk to the Americans first, then we go talk to the Russians” to try to reverse the decision. “At the same time, we will try to preserve our friendly relations with the Russians and not to spoil relations with those who impose sanctions.”

Although formally seeking European Union membership, Serbia has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over its invasion in Ukraine, in part because of the crucial Russian gas deliveries.

Vucic said that despite the embargo threat, “I’m not ready at this moment to discuss potential sanctions against Moscow.”

Asked if the threat of U.S. sanctions against Serbia could change with the arrival of Donald Trump’s administration in January, Vucic said, “We must first get the [official] documents, and then talk to the current administration, because we are in a hurry.”

The Serbian president is facing one of the biggest threats to more than a decade of his increasingly autocratic rule. Protests have been spreading by university students and others following the collapse last month of a concrete canopy at a railway station in the country’s north that killed 15 people on November 1.

Many in Serbia believe rampant corruption and nepotism among state officials led to sloppy work on the building reconstruction, which was part of a wider railroad project with Chinese state companies.
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WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND — A New Zealand man playing his first-ever competitive Scrabble game in Spanish, a language he doesn’t speak, has won the board game’s Spanish-language world title.

Nigel Richards, a professional player who holds five English-language world titles, won the Spanish world Scrabble championships in Granada, Spain, in November, losing one game out of 24.

Richards started memorizing the language’s Scrabble word list a year ago, his friend Liz Fagerlund -– a New Zealand Scrabble official -– told The Associated Press.

“He can’t understand why other people can’t just do the same thing,” she said. “He can look at a block of words together, and once they go into his brain as a picture he can just recall that very easily.”

In second place was defending champion Benjamín Olaizola of Argentina, who won 18 of his games.

Nothing like the New Zealander’s feat had ever happened in Spanish Scrabble, said Alejandro Terenzani, a contest organizer.

“It was impossible to react negatively, you can only be amazed,” Terenzani said. “We certainly expected that he would perform well, but it is perhaps true that he surpassed our expectations.”

Richards has done this before. In 2015, he became the French language Scrabble world champion, despite not speaking French, after studying the word list for nine weeks. He took the French title again in 2018.

Recognized in international Scrabble over his three-decade career as the greatest player of all time, Richards’ Spanish language victory was notable even by his standards, other players said.

While compensating for different tile values in English and Spanish Scrabble, Richards also had to contend with thousands of additional seven, eight and nine letter words in the Spanish language -– which demand a different strategy.

Richards in 2008 was the first player ever to hold the world, U.S. and British titles simultaneously, despite having to “forget” 40,000 English words that do not appear in the American Scrabble word list to triumph in the U.S.

His victories are legendary in the Scrabble community, and games analyzed in YouTube videos watched by tens of thousands.

Scrabble does not require players to know the definitions of words, only what combinations of letters are allowed in a country’s version of the game, but native speakers have “a huge leg up,” American Scrabble player Will Anderson said in a video summarizing Richards’ Spanish win.

Richards’ mother, Adrienne Fischer, told a New Zealand newspaper in 2010 that he did not excel at English in school, never attended university and took a mathematical approach to the game rather than a linguistic one.

“I don’t think he’s ever read a book, apart from the dictionary,” she said.

Fagerlund said Richards impressed her when he arrived at his first Scrabble club meeting at age 28. Two years later, in 1997, he cycled 350 kilometers from Christchurch to the city of Dunedin, won the New Zealand title on his first attempt and cycled home again.

At the Spanish event he was shy and modest, organizer Terenzani said, but happily posed for photos and spoke with fans who approached him.

“Although he did so in English, of course,” Terenzani added.

What motivates Richards, who now lives in Malaysia, is a mystery. He never speaks to reporters.

“I get lots of requests from journalists wanting to interview him and he’s not interested,” Fagerlund said. “He doesn’t understand what all the hoo-ha is about.”
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TBILISI, GEORGIA — Former soccer player Mikheil Kavelashvili became president of Georgia on Saturday, as the ruling party tightened its grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia.

Kavelashvili, 53, easily won the vote given the Georgian Dream party’s control of a 300-seat electoral college that replaced direct presidential elections in 2017.

Georgian Dream retained control of parliament in the South Caucasus nation in an October 26 election that the opposition alleges was rigged with Moscow’s help. Georgia’s outgoing president and main pro-Western parties have since boycotted parliamentary sessions and demanded a rerun of the ballot.

Georgian Dream has vowed to continue pushing toward EU accession but also wants to “reset” ties with Russia.

In 2008 Russia fought a brief war with Georgia, which led to Moscow’s recognition of two breakaway regions as independent and an increase in the Russian military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Critics have accused Georgian Dream — established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia — of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow, accusations the ruling party has denied. The party recently pushed through laws like those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.

Pro-Western Salome Zourabichvili has been president since 2018 and has vowed to stay on after her six-year term ends Monday, describing herself as the only legitimate leader until a new election is held.

Georgian Dream’s decision last month to suspend talks on their country’s bid to join the European Union added to the opposition’s outrage and galvanized protests.

 

Who is the outgoing president?

Zourabichvili, 72, was born in France to parents with Georgian roots and had a successful career with the French Foreign Ministry before President Mikheil Saakashvili named her Georgia’s top diplomat in 2004.

Constitutional changes made the president’s job largely ceremonial before Zourabichvili was elected by popular vote with Georgian Dream’s support in 2018. She became sharply critical of the ruling party, accusing it of pro-Russia policies, and Georgian Dream unsuccessfully tried to impeach her.

“I remain your president — there is no legitimate Parliament and thus no legitimate election or inauguration,” she has declared on the social network X. “My mandate continues.”

Speaking to The Associated Press, Zourabichvili rejected government claims that the opposition was fomenting violence.

“We are not demanding a revolution,” Zourabichvili said. “We are asking for new elections, but in conditions that will ensure that the will of the people will not be misrepresented or stolen again.

“Georgia has been always resisting Russian influence and will not accept having its vote stolen and its destiny stolen,” she said.

Zourabichvili called Saturday’s vote a “provocation” and “a parody” while a leader of one of Georgia’s main opposition parties said it was unconstitutional.

Giorgi Vashadze of the Unity National Movement Coalition said Zourabichvili is “the only legitimate source of power.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said that Kavelashvili’s election “will make a significant contribution to strengthening Georgia’s statehood and our sovereignty, as well as reducing radicalism and so-called polarization.”

“The main mission of the presidential institution is to care for the unity of the nation and society,” said Kobakhidze, a former university professor and later chairperson of Georgian Dream.

Who is Kavelashvili?

Georgian Dream nominated Kavelashvili — mocked by the opposition for lacking higher education. He was a striker in the Premier League for Manchester City and in several clubs in the Swiss Super League. He was elected to parliament in 2016 on the Georgian Dream ticket, and in 2022 co-founded the People’s Power political movement, which was allied with Georgian Dream and become known for its strong anti-Western rhetoric.

Kavelashvili was one of the authors of a controversial law requiring organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.

The European Union, which granted Georgia candidate status in December 2023 on condition that the country meets the bloc’s recommendations, put its accession on hold and cut financial support in June following approval of the “foreign influence” law.

 

How did opposition protests unfold?

Thousands of demonstrators converged on the parliament building every night after the government announced the suspension of EU accession talks on November 28.

Riot police used water cannons and tear gas almost daily to disperse and beat scores of protesters, some of whom threw fireworks at police officers and built barricades on the capital’s central boulevard.

Hundreds were detained and over 100 treated for injuries.

Several journalists were beaten by police, and media workers accused authorities of using thugs to deter people from attending antigovernment rallies, which Georgian Dream denies.

The crackdown has drawn strong condemnation from the United States and EU officials.

“[Kavelashvili] is not elected by us. He is controlled by a puppet government, by Bidzina Ivanishvili, by Putin,” protester Sandro Samkharadze said.

Another protester waved a sign saying “We are children of Europe.”

Demonstrators vowed the rallies would continue. “If [the government] wants to go to Russia, they can go to Russia, because we are not going anywhere. We are staying here,” said protester Kato Kalatozishvili.
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PARIS — Credit ratings agency Moody’s unexpectedly downgraded France’s rating on Friday, adding pressure on the country’s new prime minister to corral divided lawmakers into backing his efforts to rein in the strained public finances.

The downgrade, which came outside of Moody’s regular review schedule for France, brings its rating to “Aa3” from “Aa2” with a stable outlook for future moves and puts it in line with those from rival agencies Standard & Poor’s and Fitch.

It comes hours after President Emmanuel Macron named on Friday veteran centrist politician and early ally Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister this year.

His predecessor, Michel Barnier, failed to pass a 2025 budget and was toppled earlier this month by left-wing and far-right lawmakers opposed to his $63 billion (60 billion euro) belt-tightening push that he had hoped would rein in France’s spiraling fiscal deficit.

The political crisis forced the outgoing government to propose emergency legislation this week to temporarily roll over 2024 spending limits and tax thresholds into next year until a more permanent 2025 budget can be passed.

“Looking ahead, there is now very low probability that the next government will sustainably reduce the size of fiscal deficits beyond next year,” Moody’s said in a statement.

“As a result, we forecast that France’s public finances will be materially weaker over the next three years compared to our October 2024 baseline scenario,” it added.

Barnier had intended to cut the budget deficit next year to 5% of economic output from 6.1% this year with a $63 billion (60 billion euro) package of spending cuts and tax hikes.

But left-wing and far-right lawmakers were opposed to much of the belt-tightening drive and voted a no confidence measure against Barnier’s government, bringing it down.

Bayrou, who has long warned about France’s weak public finances, said on Friday shortly after taking office that he faced a “Himalaya” of a challenge reining in the deficit.

Outgoing Finance Minister Antoine Armand said he took note of Moody’s decision, adding there was a will to reduce the deficit as indicated by the nomination of Bayrou.

The political crisis put French stocks and debt under pressure, pushing the risk premium on French government bonds at one point to their highest level over 12 years.
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PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday named centrist ally François Bayrou as prime minister in an effort to address the country’s deep political crisis, after a historic parliamentary vote ousted the previous government last week.

Bayrou, 73, a crucial partner in Macron’s centrist alliance, has been a well-known figure in French politics for decades. His political experience is seen as key in efforts to restore stability as no single party holds a majority at the National Assembly.

Macron’s office said in a statement that Bayrou “has been charged with forming a new government.”

Former Prime Minister Michel Barnier resigned last week following a no-confidence vote prompted by budget disputes in the National Assembly, leaving France without a functioning government. Macron in an address to the nation vowed to remain in office until his term ends in 2027.

Bayrou vows to seek ‘needed reconciliation’

During the handover ceremony, Bayrou said that “no one knows the difficulty of the situation better” than he does.

“I’ve taken reckless risks all along my political life to raise the issue of debt and deficits in the most important elections,” he said.

France is under pressure from the European Union’s executive body and financial markets to reduce its colossal debt, estimated to reach 6% of its gross domestic product this year.

“I know that the risks of difficulties are much greater than the chances of success,” Bayrou said, adding that he hopes to lead the country towards a “needed reconciliation.”

“I think this is the only possible path to success,” he said.

Bayrou is expected to hold talks with political leaders from various parties in the coming days in order to choose new ministers.

Difficult political challenge

The task before him is challenging as Macron’s centrist alliance does not have a majority in parliament and Bayrou’s Cabinet will need to rely on moderate lawmakers from both the left and right to be able to stay in power.

Some conservatives are expected to be part of the new government.

Macron’s strategy aims at preventing far-right leader Marine Le Pen from holding “make or break” power over the government. Le Pen helped oust Barnier by joining her National Rally party’s forces to the left to pass the no-confidence motion last week.

Le Pen said on Friday that her party will adopt a wait-and-see approach for now and called on Bayrou to “hear” her voters’ demands, including preserving their purchasing power.

Bayrou’s appointment comes also in line with Macron’s efforts to build a non-aggression pact with the Socialists so that they wouldn’t support any future move to topple the new government.

The Socialists said Friday they would not take part in the new Cabinet but did not rule out possible “compromises” regarding policies. They asked Bayrou for a commitment not to use a special constitutional power to pass a law without a vote at parliament.

“We expect you to provide the guarantees needed to avoid another no-confidence vote,” the party wrote in a letter to Bayrou.

Weighty partner

Bayrou leads the centrist Democratic Movement, known as MoDem, which he founded in 2007.

In 2017, he supported Macron’s first presidential bid and became a weighty partner in the French president’s centrist alliance.

At the time, he was appointed justice minister, but he quickly resigned from the government amid an investigation into the MoDem’s alleged embezzlement of European Parliament funds.

He this year was cleared in the case by a Paris court, which found eight other party officials guilty and sentenced the party to pay a fine.

Bayrou became well known to the French public when he was education minister from 1993-97 in a conservative government.

Three-time presidential candidate

Bayrou was three times a candidate for president, in 2002, 2007 and 2012, which made him a familiar face in French politics.

His name had repeatedly surfaced as a potential prime minister in the past, but he was repeatedly passed over.

He is widely considered having helped lay the groundwork for Macron’s rise to power in 2017. Long before the French president upended the country’s politics by crushing the traditional right and left, Bayrou tapped into voter frustration with entrenched conservative and Socialist camps.

A father of six and a practicing Catholic, Bayrou has played up his rural farming roots in the Pyrenees mountains, showing off his knowledge of tractors and cattle-raising — even while spending most of his time in the corridors of political power in Paris. 
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The arrests in Azerbaijan of several journalists, including staff at the independent Meydan TV, have been condemned by the international community, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Azerbaijani authorities have detained Meydan TV’s editor-in-chief, Aynur Elgunash, and four of her reporters. Also being held are freelancer Ramin Jabrailzada, who is known as Deko, and Ulvi Tahirov, deputy director of the Baku School of Journalism.

All are charged with smuggling foreign currency and have been ordered to be held for four months in pre-trial detention. The journalists denied the charges and said the criminal case is a result of their journalism work.

During the arrests, others were briefly detained and later released, according to local reports. Journalist Ahmad Mukhtar was placed in administrative detention on charges of petty hooliganism and disobedience to the police.

Blinken in a statement called on Azerbaijani authorities to immediately release the journalists who he said were “arrested for their work on human rights.”

The media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, known as RSF, described the arrests as part of a strategy to silence critics of President Ilham Aliyev’s administration.

VOA reached out to authorities, but the calls went unanswered.

Jeanne Cavelier, who heads RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Desk, said the government has resumed its crackdown against journalists in the aftermath of COP29, the annual U.N. climate change conference that Azerbaijan hosted. 

The Meydan TV arrests again prove the regime’s “willingness to shamelessly target the individuals who dare to keep Azerbaijani citizens informed,” Cavelier said in a statement. She added that Azerbaijan has detained 13 other journalists in the past year.

RSF “calls on the international community not to turn a blind eye to these grave, systematic violations of fundamental rights,” said Cavelier.

Meydan TV in a statement described the arrests and questioning of its team as illegal.

“Since the day we began our activities, our journalists have been arrested, they and their families have been subjected to harassment, and they have been subjected to various pressures and threats. Journalists who cooperate with us have been illegally banned from leaving the country,” the statement said.

Bahruz Maharramov, a member of the Azerbaijani parliament, questioned the criticism of the arrests.

“If there are real suspicions based on valid, irrefutable evidence, why should any person’s profession prevent those suspicions from being investigated?” he said. 

“Why should we remain silent about the illegal actions of a mercenary network like Meydan TV, just because they are journalists? Where is the legality, where is the equality?” he told VOA.

Regular pressure

Meydan TV was founded in 2013 as an impartial and objective media organization. It has regularly faced pressure from the authorities, and in 2017 access to its website was blocked in the country. The network’s social media accounts have been hacked multiple times and their contents deleted.

Orkhan Mammad, an editor at Meydan TV, said that some of those detained were subjected to violence and that the authorities tried to forcefully extract statements from them.

“Ramin Deko had bruises under his eyes. He was left without a lawyer for a long time. When Aynur Elgunash’s house was searched, she was pinned against the wall, hit in the kidney region, and her computer was seized,” he said.

The lawyer for Tahirov, Bahruz Bayramov, told VOA that the assistant director of the Baku School of Journalism has no connection with Meydan TV.

“They were just family friends with Aynur Elgunash. A large amount of money was seized during a search at Tahirov’s house. However, Tahirov stated that the money belonged to his wife,” Bayramov said.

The money found was from her salary, the lawyer said.

Zibeyda Sadigova, who is representing another of the journalists, Natig Javadli, said that there was no basis for the arrest.

“We were not provided with the decision and protocols regarding the search of his home, so we were unable to review them. Natig said that his computers and phones were confiscated, but no money was found in the house,”  Sadigova said.

The lawyer said that Javadli has been in journalism for 30 years and that the arrest is related to that work. “They seized his passwords without a court order. He was subjected to psychological pressure,” the lawyer told VOA.

Lawyers representing the journalists have filed an appeal against the pre-trial detention.

Media crackdown

More than 20 journalists and media workers have been arrested in Azerbaijan since late 2023 on allegations of smuggling and other crimes.

Among those affected are journalists from Abzas Media, known for its corruption investigations, and the independent media outlet Toplum TV.

The editor-in-chief of Abzas Media, Sevinj Vagifgizi, was among the Anti-Corruption Champions honored by Blinken on Monday. 

“Vagifgizi has devoted more than a decade in exposing government abuses. She’s also the one awardee who is not with us this afternoon,” Blinken said during a ceremony.

He noted that Vagifgizi had returned to Azerbaijan in November 2023, “knowing that she might be arrested on arrival.” More than a year later, said Blinken, “she remains in detention.”

Azerbaijan’s government has rejected international criticism of the arrests, calling it an “interference in Azerbaijan’s internal affairs and the independence of the judiciary.”

Officials say that fundamental rights, as well as media freedom, are guaranteed. 

Local human rights organizations estimate that there are more than 300 political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

The country ranks 164th out of 180 on the RSF’s World Press Freedom Index, where 1 reflects the best environment for media.

Ulviyya Guliyeva contributed to this report.   
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ROME — Italy’s government has granted citizenship to Argentinian President Javier Milei on account of his Italian family roots, a source with knowledge of the matter said Friday, confirming earlier media reports.

Milei is in Rome to meet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and to take part in her Brothers of Italy party’s annual festival Saturday.

The source declined to provide further details.

The news on Italian media triggered an angry reaction from some politicians and on social media from people protesting at citizenship being given to Milei when it is hard to obtain for the children of migrants born in Italy.

Italy’s citizenship laws are based on blood ties, meaning that even distant descendants of an Italian national can obtain an Italian passport.

Requirements for foreigners born in Italy or who migrate there, on the other hand, are much tougher. Pro-migrant groups have proposed a referendum to ease them, but Meloni’s right-wing coalition is against any relaxation.

Riccardo Magi, a lawmaker from the small opposition More Europa party, said granting citizenship to Milei was an act of “intolerable discrimination against so many young people who will only get it after many years.”

During a previous trip to Italy in February, Milei told a TV interview that he felt “75% Italian” since three of his grandparents had Italian origins, and that he has “an incredible passion for Italian Opera.”

Libertarian Milei and conservative Meloni have established a close relationship. When they met in Buenos Aires last month, the Argentine leader gave his Italian guest a statuette of himself wielding his trademark chainsaw.
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LONDON — A landmark hearing into nation-states’ legal obligations over climate change wrapped up at the United Nations’ top court in The Hague on Friday. The outcome could have implications for the fight against climate change — and for the big polluters blamed for emitting most greenhouse gases.

The 15 judges at the International Court of Justice have heard evidence from 99 countries and dozens of organizations over the course of the two-week hearing.

They are trying to determine the legal obligations of states to tackle climate change and to repair the harm caused.

The judges’ advisory opinion is expected to be published next year.

Emotional testimony

The testimony has at times been technical – but also impassioned and emotional. Small island states have argued their existence is at stake and so international human rights laws must apply to climate change.

“For young people, the demand for reparations is crucial for justice. We have inherited a planet in decline and face the grim prospect of passing on an even more degraded world to future generations,” said Vishal Prasad, campaign director for Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, which lobbied for the case to be heard.

“Equally clear is the demand for immediate cessation. If greenhouse gas emissions are not stopped, we are not just risking our future, we are welcoming its demise,” he said.

Polluters

Countering that argument were several big polluting nations, including China, India, Britain and the United States. They argued that only climate treaties, such as the 2015 Paris Agreement, confer any legal obligations on nation-states regarding climate change.

“An advisory proceeding is not the means to litigate whether individual states or groups of states have violated obligations pertaining to climate change in the past or bear responsibility for reparations, as some participants have suggested,” legal adviser to the U.S. State Department, Margaret L. Taylor, told the court on December 4.

“It’s a suggestion … that some, but not all, states are entitled, as a matter of international law, to reparations simply upon a showing that the climate system has been harmed. We do not see a basis for such a conclusion,” Taylor added.

Island states

The U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory ruling after years of lobbying from small island and vulnerable coastal states, which argue that rising sea levels due to global warming pose an existential threat. The judges’ opinion will not be legally binding, but analysts say it will carry legal weight and could influence future climate negotiations.

Youth climate groups have led the campaign at the U.N., and several attended the hearings in The Hague. Many campaigners were optimistic as the two-week hearing closed Friday.

“We came here hoping that at the end of it all, we shall get a favorable advisory opinion,” ,” said Kenyan lawyer Brenda Reson Sapuro, who represented the group World’s Youth for Climate Justice at the hearing. “And we still stand hopeful because we have told our stories. We have told our stories from our heart. We’ve spoken of our experiences, and we believe that the law is also on our side.”

What happens next?

The ICJ’s advisory opinion may simply reiterate existing climate deals such as the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to Renatus Otto Franz Derler, a climate law expert and editor-in-chief of the Cambridge International Law Journal.

“[Or] a second intermediate outcome would be that states have an obligation to fight climate change. The conduct that they’re doing, for example the petrostates, is in breach of general international law, so therefore state responsibility would apply,” Derler told VOA.

Petrostates are countries that are heavily dependent on the export of oil and natural gas.

The judges may instead issue a much more ambitious advisory, “in terms of saying that, yes, states cause climate change, it is a breach of international law, and therefore states are obligated to pay financial compensation and cessation of all these harmful activities,” Derler said.

He added that such an outcome would likely lead to further legal uncertainties over how and where such compensation claims would be heard.
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A landmark hearing into nation-states’ legal obligations over climate change wrapped up at the United Nations’ top court in The Hague on Friday. The outcome could have implications for the fight against global warming — and for the big polluters blamed for emitting most greenhouse gases. Henry Ridgwell has more.
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