Editor’s Note: Hanna Schechter is a young expert in the Global Governance Innovation Network and recent graduate of Georgetown University’s Masters in Conflict Resolution. This commentary is part of the GGIN’s Next Generation Experts series, which aims to elevate youth research and writing. Hanna Schechter’s interest and research center on political memory, the environment, and the Asia-Pacific region.

By Richard Ponzio, Director, Global Governance, Justice & Security Program

For decades, Pacific Island countries (PICs) have called climate change an existential threat as rising sea levels swallow shorelines and endanger hospitals, homes, and territory. In a historic multilateral effort propelled by the small island nation of Vanuatu, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that a nation’s maritime boundaries remain legally permanent even as physical shorelines change, setting a new precedent for climate law. 

Immediate Implications of a Changing Climate in the Pacific Islands

The Pacific Islands are home to 2.3 million people with diverse cultural, linguistic, and geographic backgrounds. PICs comprise 15% of the earth’s surface, mostly covering ocean territory, giving each island nation sovereignty and economic rights to large maritime territories that dwarf physical territory. This lends to PICs maintaining a high degree of importance for international maritime trade; for example, in 2023, Pacific sea lanes comprised 56% of U.S. exports and 60% of the world’s tuna supply.

In the Pacific, climate change is described as the “single greatest threat to security” in the region’s 2025 future strategy. Climate risks include 62% of “critical health facilities” being submerged by rising sea levels, soil salination due to groundwater contamination, and increasing impacts of natural disasters. In 2023, 25 million people in the Pacific were affected by floods or severe storms, which are only expected to rise in the coming years. 

What Has Been Done So Far?

The United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea dictates that a nation’s maritime exclusive economic zones (EEZs) will not go beyond 200 nautical miles from the coastline. If a coastline recedes, would this EEZ also recede? Would this extend to natural resource rights? Only in the last few years have bilateral and multilateral governance mechanisms addressed these questions.

To address the impacts of rising sea levels, the Falepili Union, signed in November of 2023 between Australia and the small island nation of Tuvalu, created three important mechanisms: 

i) Australia will recognize Tuvalu’s sovereignty even in the event of territorial change due to rising sea levels;

ii) Australia will aid Tuvalu in the case of a climate, health, or defense event; and

iii) Australia will support a climate migration mechanism for Tuvaluians to apply for visas in Australia. 

The timeliness of this union cannot be overstated. Most of Tuvalu sits 6.5 feet from sea level, making it one of the first nations impacted by sea level rise, with estimates that in the next 30 years, half of its central island could be submerged. Tuvalu, along with the greater Pacific community, continue to highlight the risks of climate change at international forums, attempting to garner greater international support. This momentum carried into the UN’s climate gathering, COP30 (November 2025) where PICs supported bold decarbonization plans, renewable energy targets, marine ecosystem restoration, and educational campaigns on how climate change is impacting fisheries and food security. These initiatives centered on prioritizing global commitments toward maintaining global temperature below 1.5 celsius as well as recognizing the importance of understanding ocean science in combating climate change, evidenced in sea level rise. 

PICs along with Australia rallied support to host the next COP meeting scheduled for November 2026; however, Türkiye is set to host the next global climate conference. Although not hosting, Australia will preside over negotiations for COP31 and is expected to call attention to the needs facing PICs, including raising $1.5 billion in funding for the Pacific Resilience Facility. The facility will assist vulnerable populations in the Pacific by increasing preparedness and expediting post-disaster recovery through targeting local grants to build climate resilient infrastructure, thus decreasing reliance on international aid. Tuvalu, Palau, and Fiji will also host events pre-COP so global audiences can hear directly from the Pacific on the impacts of climate change for the region. The Falepili Union and advancements from COP are steps in the right direction for islanders to have agency over their legal future that hung in the balance until recently. 

Global Governance as a Means to Affirm Existence

In May 2026, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution supporting an advisory opinion issued by the ICJ enshrining the continuance of maritime zones and sovereignty in spite of physical territorial changes. The resolution, although non-binding, set a precedent for future conduct in the Pacific to protect EEZs from becoming international waters. This means that as shorelines recede, an established nation’s maritime territory will remain. The Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum, a regional body consisting of 18 Member States, hailed the UN’s decision and reaffirmed the sovereignty of PICs maritime borders. This landmark decision is recalibrating how small island states use multilateral forums to exercise their right to exist. 

The advisory opinion also laid the foundation to make climate commitments legally binding under international human rights and environmental law, creating avenues for climate compensation. Pacific youth activist Vishal Prasad, whose movement helped bring the ICJ to this decision, described the moment as a “turning point in accountability” for large polluting nations and an act of justice for PICs who “have been waiting far too long and continue to pay too high a price for the actions of others.”

Beyond the Pacific, the decision by the ICJ and UN impacts countries across the world, especially coastal countries, who may eventually experience the impacts of sea level rise and disaster related territorial loss. This decision directly addresses the question: If a nation’s territory changes, such as an island sinking into the ocean, does the country’s EEZ change? As of now, it won’t. 

Legal Protections Not Enough to Keep Communal Memory Alive

Although the UN’s decision marks an important step toward recognizing the existential threats posed by climate change, it may arrive too late for island states already facing the prospect of physical submersion. Tuvalu has responded to this impending loss by pursuing the creation of a “digital nation,” an effort to preserve its identity and cultural memory even if its territory becomes uninhabitable. This initiative exposes a deeper gap in the current international system: Sovereignty, identity, and collective memory remain tied to physical territory. If climate change can sever a people from the land that has historically anchored their statehood, then existing legal and institutional frameworks are insufficient.

New global or regional governance mechanisms are needed not only to address displacement and territorial loss, but also to preserve the cultural, political, and historical continuity of nations whose physical presence may disappear. Any framework for climate-threatened nations must therefore preserve more than sovereignty. It must also protect the memories, cultures, and histories that make national survival meaningful.