For a second time, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has passed the buck on its landmark climate disclosure rule, entitled The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors. The rule, finalized just last year, remains in legal limbo, as neither the SEC nor the courts seem eager to […]
Within a single month, two groundbreaking advisory opinions on climate change have been issued, fundamentally shaking the field of international environmental and human rights law: the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 on the “Climate Emergency and Human Rights” and the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ’s) Advisory […]
Advisory Opinion 32/25 (AO-32/25) of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) marks a turning point in the interpretation of international human rights law in relation to climate change. In AO-32/25, the IACtHR recognizes that the world is facing a genuine climate emergency and affirms that this situation demands an […]
“An existential threat” – this is how the International Court of Justice (ICJ) characterized climate change in its long-awaited advisory opinion on the obligations of States with respect to climate change. In the most significant development in international climate law since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the ICJ outlined […]
Corporations, especially those engaged in fossil fuel production, agriculture, construction, and transportation, play a significant role in the climate crisis and in its human rights impacts. Holding businesses responsible for their human rights and environmental harms has been a perennial challenge that has become increasingly acute in the climate crisis. […]
In the 2015 Paris Agreement, the international community agreed to “strengthen the global response to climate change” by limiting the “increase in global average temperatures to well below 2oC above pre-industrial levels,” and ideally to 1.5oC. As recognized in the Agreement, to stay within these limits, global greenhouse gas emissions […]
On July 3, 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) issued its long-awaited Advisory Opinion No. 32 (AO-32/25) on the “Climate Emergency and Human Rights” (the official English translation can be found here; for an overview of the decision’s key elements, see here). A broad group of States, communities, […]
At a July 10, 2025 meeting, Commissioner Judy Chang of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) argued that the United States needs to rapidly build more transmission capacity to bring new sources of electricity online. She explained that “transmission is the network that needs to support both generation and load, […]