More to rights than the law

The ICJ must go beyond placing responsibility on polluters, says Abrahim Shah

- (The writer is a Pakistani civil servant and a recent OPP and BSG scholar at the University of Oxford.) Dawn/ANN.

Last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded historic hearings on placing legal responsibility for climate change. Led by the small Pacific island-nation Vanuatu, the proceedings witnessed over 100 countries and international organisations deliberate the legal consequences of atmospheric pollution.

The hearings mark a seminal moment because it is for the first time the ICJ is pondering legal responsibility for climate change. Interestingly, the Supreme Court of Pakistan in the 1994 'Shehla Zia vs Wapda' case established the 'right to a healthy environment' as an essential component of the fundamental right to life (Article 9 of the Constitution) and the right to human dignity (Article 14), raising essential questions about the state's responsibility to mitigate factors such as smog.

Globally, the ICJ's hearing raises critical inquiries. First, under today's neoliberal rationality, what exactly does it mean to have a 'right' and the protections it putatively affords? For many critical thinkers like Wendy Brown, the very legal edifice erected to protect individual rights serves as an instrument of oppression and displacement.

This brings under sharp scrutiny the contradictions inherent in legal decisions on collective concerns such as the environment under the hyper-individualist tenor of thought of modern capitalism.