While the United Nations cannot force Australia to take action, those leading the case say they hope it will apply pressure on governments around the world to protect the rights of marginalized citizens whose culture is tethered to a particular place, and for whom dispossession could reignite the trauma of colonization.

“They are losing everything — they can’t just pick it up and go somewhere else; their culture is unique to that region,” said Sophie Marjanac, a lawyer with ClientEarth, the environmental law organization that is lodging the claim.

“That’s the crux of the argument,” she said. “If Indigenous people are disposed of their homelands, then they can’t continue to practice their culture.”

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body appointed by the world’s governments, global sea levels could rise by an average of up to 3.2 feet by 2100, which could force people from low-lying atolls in the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Torres Strait to evacuate.

On Masig Island, which lies on average less than 10 feet above sea level, people are already struggling to combat the impacts of climate change. As the shoreline has crept closer, fresh water wells have turned brackish, and coconut trees have been uprooted and fallen into the ocean. Other trees, withering from the heat, have stopped bearing edible fruit.