“I sometimes see Ebeye sinking in my mind and many individuals drowning,” said Ranton Anjain, a low-lying Marshall Islands complainant, in a declaration. Ebeye, which measures only 80 acres, has an estimated 15,000 population, most of which are under 18 years of age.

“The sea swallows our homes, the places where memories are created,” said Carlos Manual, a Palau-based 17-year-old, at a press conference to announce the suit. “Because I care about my generation, I’m standing in front of you.” Teenagers are from all over the globe, including four of the five named nations. Their complaint represents the absence of boundaries in the atmosphere. Carbon pollution from Brazil’s human-ignited fires changes the climate just as much as Turkey’s coal-fired plant emissions. What the five countries all have in common is that they belong to a group of 51 nations that have signed what is known as the Convention’s Third Optional Protocol. This protocol enables kids from all over the globe to sue the countries that have signed on to the protocol. A commission of 18 global specialists on children’s rights will now hear the complaint lodged on Monday. Juliane Kippenberg, Associate Director of the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, informed Earther that the suit utilizes a system that has only been around since 2014 and has “not earned so much attention yet” for climate relief.

If the commission discovers that climate change impedes the freedoms of the 16 complainants, the five nations named in the suit must either leave the convention or take the necessary radical action to tackle climate change.

Davies said the situation would probably be “successful,” but it also shows the intrinsic weakness of international laws, many of which were drafted before the seriousness of the climate crisis became apparent.

“The issue with most international law tools, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is that they were drafted in advance of science affirming climate change threats,” she said. “Therefore, the challenges posed by climate change to the law must be’ refitted’ into legal frameworks that have not been drafted for this purpose.” The best available science in the world demonstrates that governments need to quickly reduce their emissions in order to maintain a climate that is somewhat similar to that which allows beings to flourish. The destiny of millions of children and unborn generations is hanging in the balance, and how quickly the globe will determine their destiny. Yet, despite commitments to the Paris Agreement, last year’s global carbon emissions grew.

Children have prosecuted the U.S. government in a landmark case called Juliana v. U.S. that has been walking its way through federal courts for years. Sébastien Duyck, a senior lawyer at the Center for Environmental Law, pointed out as another precedent a case lodged previously this year by Torres Strait Islanders against Australia. The low-lying islands on which they reside are consumed by increasing waters, and for failing to decrease their emissions, they lodged an global human rights case against Australia. Take these two instances and mash them together, and the fresh case introduced by Thunberg and her fellow plaintiffs is roughly approximated.

“These instances assist reveal the hypocrisy of nations claiming to be fully committed to realizing human rights while undermining those rights by lacking adequate intervention to address climate change,” Duyck told Earther in an email.

If the case succeeds, it may set fresh international law precedents. While the five nations account for 6.12 percent of total global carbon emissions, the complaint’s executive summary suggests the children are requesting them “to participate instantly with other states in binding global collaboration to mitigate the climate crisis,” which could (and should) include other nations not listed in the complaint.

The world’s history of climate treaties has been checked. The Kyoto Protocol, a treaty laid down in 1997, was binding and, as a consequence, the U.S. endorsed the treaty. Much of the treaty was a failure. The more latest Paris Agreement is non-binding in an attempt to take the U.S. on board. That has not yet prevented President Trump from attempting to leave it, and so far the treaty has turned out to be more words than real behavior. And nations ‘ obligations to decrease carbon pollution are nowhere near sufficient to prevent catastrophic climate change.

But just because governments fail does not imply that people need to take it lying down. If the strikes were the start of a new era of climate action, the complaint opens up more and more possibilities.

“As the human rights effects of climate change are progressively affecting people around the globe,” Duyck said, “one can only expect that more individuals wishing to safeguard their communities ‘ freedoms will try to hold states responsible for their (in)action — including through the use of global human rights bodies.”

With the recent rise of student protests around the world to urge their governments to take swift action against the global climate crisis, developed nations have never had a better time to take the necessary action to help smaller countries deal with the crisis themselves.