Reverend Bhagwan says our stories of vanishing breadfruit and sinking homelands are the lived science ICJ is now asked to translate into law

Our stories of salinised wells, vanishing breadfruit and sinking homelands are the lived science the International Court of Justice is now asked to translate into law.

Those are the words of the General Secretary Pacific Conference of Churches, Reverend James Bhagwan as he says the International Court of Justice will speak tomorrow into humanity’s greatest moral test: the climate crisis.

While speaking to fijivillage News ahead of the historic advisory opinion, Reverend Bhagwan says for Pacific churches this ruling arrives exactly 21 years after the Otin Taai “sunrise” declaration first sounded our prophetic alarm, calling the world to conversion and solidarity.

He says the 2024 Tuākoi ‘Lei Declaration by Pacific Churches reminds us who we are asked to be in this hour—good and loving neighbours who show mercy, like the Samaritan in the Bible.

Reverend Bhagwan says as neighbours we stand with creation itself, refusing to let fossil-fuelled greed drive God’s good earth back into chaos, embody neighbourly love, compassion and hope, turning the tide toward ecological justice, speak truth to power, holding industrialised nations accountable for harms we did not cause, yet suffer daily.

He says they pray the judges affirm a duty of care that is as clear as our experience: prevention of harm, protection of rights and repair of damage.

Reverend Bhagwan says guided by the Tuākoi ‘Lei roadmap, Pacific churches will continue to reweave the Ecological Mat—centering wellbeing over profit and decolonising their theology of development, press for a just, rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and the criminalisation of ecocide.

He says whatever the Court decides tomorrow, their mandate remains: "Go and do likewise."