On 21 May 2024, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) delivered its much anticipated Advisory Opinion on Climate Change. Other blog-posts have already dealt with various aspects of the Advisory Opinion (see, for instance, here and here), including the Tribunal’s approach to interpreting the United Nations […]
ITLOS
10 posts
The oceans absorb large quantities of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities. This “sink” function is so significant that, until 1957, one objection to a causal link between anthropogenic emissions and global warming was that the oceans would absorb most of the excess CO2, thus breaking this link. That […]
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) issued an advisory opinion on April 21, 2024 in response to a request submitted by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS). While various aspects of the advisory opinion have already been discussed in […]
Can the new advisory opinion interpreting the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) move us beyond the lethargy of unmet climate change policy needs? The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (the Tribunal, ITLOS) established the gravity of this question by stating that […]
The Advisory Opinion handed down by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on 21 May 2024 is truly remarkable. Its clarification that all anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions, from any source, constitute marine pollution has potentially far-reaching consequences. Under the United Nations Convention of the Law […]
Introduction ‘Historic’ and ‘unprecedented’ are two adjectives that could easily apply to the advisory opinion rendered by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on May 21, 2024. Of course, these adjectives have also been used to describe many other recent judgments delivered on the topic of […]
A long-standing conundrum of international environmental law is that the territorially-based, sectoral legal structures we have created to address environmental issues do not match the interconnected, interdependent nature of ecosystems. For many, this problem is writ large in the climate context. Whereas the science—synthesized in recent assessments and special reports […]
On May 21, 2024, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) delivered a long-awaited Advisory Opinion on climate change and international law. This marks the first time that an international tribunal has issued an advisory opinion on State obligations regarding climate change mitigation. The Advisory Opinion addresses […]