This could have significant ramifications for all Australians, none more so than Torres Strait Islanders.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, up to 2000 Torres Strait Islanders will ''likely'' be displaced to the Australian mainland later this century if dangerous levels of climate change are not avoided. This is a staggering proportion of the almost 7000 Islanders who live there.

Climate change litigation has grown in recent years to be a significant legal phenomenon in Australia, as elsewhere (particularly the United States) as concerned citizens have tried to force governments to take effective action.

Unless the Government works with the Senate to dramatically improve its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) its most significant emissions reduction measure Torres Strait Islanders may wish to begin considering their legal options.

A novel example of overseas climate litigation uses international human rights law. In December 2005, the Inuit of Alaska and Canada filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging that the failure of the United States to curtail its greenhouse gas emissions constituted a violation of their rights protected by regional and international human rights instruments.

Climate change similarly has ramifications for Torres Strait Islanders' human rights.

As a low-lying region, the strait is at risk from rising sea levels as well as expected increases in extreme weather events. Already sea levels there are visibly rising, in some cases flooding what were once roads.

In 2005 and 2006, the islands experienced two severe storms involving damaging king tides, which CSIRO scientist Dr Donna Green partly attributes to climate change.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee, which oversees compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), may offer the most attractive forum for legal action by Islanders.

Most domestic litigation options are unlikely to be fruitful, making an international complaint worth considering.

The ICCPR clearly contains rights affected by climate change, and its optional protocol allows Australians to make individual complaints to the committee. There are precedents of Australians using this forum, the most famous being the successful complaint in 1991 by Nicholas Toonen over Tasmania's laws that criminalised homosexual sex. It led to those laws being overridden.

So is a complaint to the Human Rights Committee viable?

For Islanders, several ICCPR rights are implicated. Most relevant is article 27, which protects the right of ethnic minorities to enjoy their own culture.

Island culture, or ailan kastom, is likely to be impaired in various ways by climate change. There may be detrimental effects on marine turtles and dugong, traditional gardens, and cultural heritage such as graveyards, monuments and sacred sites.

But more alarmingly, up to 2000 Islanders could be displaced from their traditional lands and the surrounding marine environment important because Islanders are a seafaring people.

Several other ICCPR rights are also implicated by climate change, namely the right to life; the right to protection of privacy, family and the home; the right to freedom of residence and movement; and the right to self-determination.

However, while Islanders' human rights are certainly implicated, proving Australia's legal responsibility would involve major legal hurdles.

First, it would need to be shown that the Federal Government has failed to adopt ''appropriate measures'' to help prevent dangerous climate change under article 2 of the ICCPR.

In its defence, the Rudd Government could point to its ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and the likelihood of Australia meeting its Kyoto target for 2008-12. It would also argue that it has committed to significant emissions reduction policies.

The CPRS, however, is but a paper tiger. Its proposed emissions reduction target for 2020 of between 5 and 15 per cent on 2000 levels (contingent on the commitment of other nations), falls well short of the 25 per cent target recommended by the Government's own adviser, Professor Ross Garnaut.

As a wealthy nation, 25 per cent is the target Australia must adopt to carry its fair share in global efforts.

If the Committee agreed that Australia's emissions reduction measures were inadequate, significant legal challenges would still exist.

In terms of causation, for example, a significant problem would be attributing damage to Islanders' rights to the acts or omissions of the Australian Government. Australia is the fourth highest per capita contributor to global GHG emissions and 15th in absolute terms, but contributes only 1.5 per cent of total global emissions.

Recent court cases, however, such as Massachusetts v EPA in the US, and Anvil Hill in NSW, have accepted that relatively small contributions to global emissions are still legally significant.

The Human Right Committee's decisions are not binding, but this does not mean that, for Islanders, litigation of this type is not worth pursuing.

A favourable determination by the committee would have substantial political value, putting moral pressure on the Government to begin genuinely contributing to global efforts to prevent dangerous climate change.

A complaint would also document present and likely future harm to Islanders from climate change. This could help Islanders if they sought a compensation package for the cost of relocating their peoples and cultural heritage.

In Opposition, Labor asserted that it wanted to restore Australia's reputation as a good international citizen. This is the perfect time for it to do so.

Owen Cordes-Holland is a PhD candidate, international law tutor and casual lecturer in the Australian National University College of Law.

A fuller version of this argument appears in Melbourne Journal of International Law 405, available online.