Palau | Good News For Humankind

Ocean water, for article on law of the sea treaty, for article on ITLOS climate ruling

Island states win historic climate case in world oceans court

By / July 21, 2024 / Good News For Humankind

Nine small island nations just won a landmark climate ruling from the world’s top ocean court, with judges declaring for the first time that greenhouse gases absorbed by the sea legally count as marine pollution. The coalition — including Tuvalu, Antigua and Barbuda, Vanuatu, and Palau — argued that countries have binding obligations under the Law of the Sea to limit warming to 1.5°C, and the tribunal agreed. Though the opinion is advisory, it’s already shaping two pending climate cases at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice. For nations whose very existence is threatened by rising seas, it’s a reminder that patient diplomacy and international law can still give the smallest voices real weight in the global climate fight.

Streets of Palau Koror and coves of coral reefs, for article on High Seas Treaty

Palau is the first nation to ratify treaty to protect high seas

By / January 30, 2024 / Good News For Humankind

Palau just became the first country in the world to ratify the High Seas Treaty, the international agreement aimed at protecting the two-thirds of the ocean that lies beyond any nation’s borders. This tiny Pacific nation of around 340 islands has long led by example, having already shielded 80% of its own waters from fishing and mining — the highest share of any country on Earth. Once 60 nations ratify, the treaty becomes binding law, opening the door to marine protected areas, environmental reviews, and shared benefits from deep-sea discoveries. Chile and the Maldives are close behind, with advocates hopeful the threshold could be met by mid-2025. Palau’s message is simple and powerful: the ocean has no borders, and protecting it is a shared inheritance.

Palau becomes first country to ban ‘reef toxic’ sunscreen

By Peter Schulte / January 1, 2020 / Good news links

The International Coral Reef Foundation said the banned chemicals were “known environmental pollutants – most of them are… incredibly toxic to juvenile stages of many wildlife species”.

Suva, for article on Suva Declaration climate change

Pacific Island leaders call for global fossil fuel moratorium in Suva Declaration

By Peter Schulte / September 1, 2015 / Archive of Human Genius

The Suva Declaration on Climate Change, signed by Pacific Island leaders in Fiji in 2015, was the first time national governments formally called for a halt to new fossil fuel extraction. Nations like Tuvalu, sitting less than two meters above sea level, named the source of the crisis directly. It helped seed a decade of supply-side climate diplomacy.