"We are literally on the front line" of climate change says Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Antigua-and-Barbuda, speaking as small island nations take their ocean protection case to the UN's International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). "We have to fight stridently to get the large polluters to act to reduce emissions" he adds. On Monday, nine small island states asked the court to determine if carbon emissions absorbed by the ocean can be considered pollution and, if so, what obligations countries have to prevent it. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES