In the recent Advisory Opinion on States’ Obligations in respect of Climate Change (AO, 2025) various remarks by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) lean into an increasingly “administrative” law turn in international law. Administrative law, particularly in the common law, often focuses on the acceptability of the procedures through […]
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As the world faces an escalating triple planetary crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution – those who step forward to defend the environment are increasingly stigmatized, criminalized, and subjected to violence. Nowhere is this threat more acute than in Latin America, which accounts for nearly 80% of all […]
Among the various legal instruments aimed at protecting human rights in the face of the climate emergency, few require as much interpretative effort as the right to science. Traditionally situated within the realm of programmatic obligations and often associated with promoting technical progress and disseminating scientific information, this right has occupied a […]
The International Court of Justice’s (ICJ’s) advisory opinion on Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change has been celebrated as marking the start of a “new era of climate reparations.” The question of how the ICJ engaged with reparations has already been examined in two other posts in this […]
One of the most profound findings in the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ’s) climate change advisory opinion (AO) is that State obligations to mitigate climate change to a level that holds warming to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5oC threshold are spread out over the large canvas of international law, including United […]
The climate reparations debate seeks justice for states, communities, and individuals suffering from the unjust distribution of climate-related harms. This debate can be usefully informed by lessons from the field of ‘transitional justice’, i.e., the body of scholarship and practice concerned with how societies respond to the legacies of massive […]
As the realities of climate change become increasingly dire, communities worldwide face devastating impacts, from rising sea levels to extreme weather events, disproportionately affecting those who have contributed the least to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this context, impacted individuals and communities are increasingly seeking recourse in international and regional […]
The International Court of Justice’s (ICJ’s) Advisory Opinion on Climate Change arrived with force. Given its far-reaching implications, there is no doubt that the opinion now will be subject to conflicting interpretations. In this post, I highlight the interpretive compass that the opinion supplies to those who will now interpret […]