The ICJ Rules That Failing to Combat Climate Change Could Violate International Law

If it is a country It fails to take decisive measures to protect the planet from climate change, and this may be broken international law and is responsible for the damage caused by humanity. This is one of the unprecedented conclusions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding the legal obligations of countries in the face of this environmental crisis.

The 15 judges who form ICJ, the highest Judicial body of the United Nations, described the need to address the threat of climate change as “urgent and existential.” Unanimously, they decided that the signatories of various international agreements could violate international law if they did not adopt measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The ruler states that a “clean, healthy and sustainable environment” is a human right. This interpretation raises the climate debate beyond the environmental or economic field, and places it as a issue of justice and basic rights.

The shift in the focus significantly affects international legislation in the future and litigation, facilitating accountability of countries contaminating the environmental damage that causes it. As of June of this year, according to another report issued by the Grantham Institute for Research on Climate Change and Environment in London, there were approximately 2,967 active climate change lawsuits in nearly 60 countries, with more than 226 new cases in 2024 alone.

Yuji Iwasawa, President of the International Court of Justice, explained that this is an advisory opinion, not a binding ruling. However, he expressed that the court hoped that this statement would “inform and direct social and political action to address the continuous climate crisis.”

The issue that led to this opinion arose in 2019, when a group of students from Vanu’u, the Pacific Island state, began especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, in pushing the government’s failure on the climate crisis to be legally recognized as a “existential danger”. Later, Ralph Regenvano, the country’s minister of climate change, filed an official complaint to the International Court of Justice. In 2023, the United Nations General Assembly addressed the official nature of the court’s consultant.

The rulers answered two major questions: What are the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate and environment system from greenhouse gas emissions? What are the legal consequences of the countries that, through work or failure to work, cause significant damage to the climate, especially with regard to the weakened island and current and future generations?

Court analysis of the provisions of international treaties such as the United Nations Charter, the Comprehensive Declaration of Human Rights, the Paris Agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, were considered among other things.

The evaluation of the International Court of Justice concluded that states have a duty, “by disposing of due care and using all means at their disposal”, to prevent activities under their jurisdiction or control over them from negatively affecting the environment.