The Philippines has expressed support for the move of the small island state's petition for the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to issue an advisory opinion on state responsibilities on climate change that mostly affect them.

Speaking before the ITLOS in Hamburg, Germany, Ambassador and Permanent Representative Carlos Sorreta of the Philippine Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday evening (Philippine time) backed the Commission on Small Island States or COSIS' formal request.

"As an archipelagic state comprised mostly of small islands and one of the most vulnerable to, and most affected by climate change, the Philippines stands in solidarity with COSIS, and all the small island states that comprise it, and support their initiative to request the Tribunal's advisory opinion," Sorreta said.

"Fundamental to our position is that while UNCLOS was not designed as a mechanism for regulating climate change, its mandate is broad enough to consider the connection between climate and the oceans," he added, referring to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

For the Philippines, he noted that the 40-year-old framework agreement must be "interpreted in light of changing global circumstances and changing laws."

"It is, among others, a strong, innovative, and comprehensive global environmental treaty governing over two-thirds of the planet," he said.

"It must be interpreted and applied with subsequent developments in international law and policy in mind," he added.

Advisory opinion
Sorreta told the Tribunal that from the time that COSIS filed its request for an advisory opinion last December, at least "nine devastating typhoons have battered my country."

"Lives have been lost, people hurt and displaced, cities and towns flooded, and large areas of farmlands inundated. The trajectory and magnitude of our typhoons have become more erratic and even less predictable," he said.

He noted that the typhoons that hit the Philippines in the past decade have claimed 12,000 deaths in the Philippines and $12 billion worth of loss and damage.

In December 2022, COSIS members composed of Tuvalu, Palau, Vanuatu, St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Niue, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, made a formal request before the ITLOS to issue an advisory opinion on specific issues associated with the sea level rise, and climate change.