The Worldwide Court docket of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion in July 2025 declaring that every one international locations have a authorized obligation to guard and forestall hurt to the local weather.
The courtroom, created as a part of the United Nations in 1945, affirmed that international locations should uphold current worldwide legal guidelines associated to local weather change and, in the event that they fail to behave, might be held answerable for injury to communities and the atmosphere.
The opinion opens a door for future claims by international locations looking for reparations for climate-related hurt.
However whereas the ruling is a giant international story, its authorized impact on the U.S. is much less clear. We research local weather insurance policies, legislation and options. Right here’s what you might want to know in regards to the ruling and its implications.
Why island nations known as for a proper opinion
The ruling resulted from years of grassroots and youth-led organizing by Pacific Islanders. Supporters have known as it “a turning point for frontline communities everywhere.”
Small island states like Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Barbados and others throughout the Pacific and Caribbean are among the many most weak to local weather change, but they’ve contributed little to international emissions.
Waves hit the shore in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, throughout a storm on Nov. 27, 2019. Waves inundated components of the island, washing rocks and particles into roads.
Hilary Hosia/AFP through Getty Pictures
For a lot of of them, sea-level rise poses an existential risk. Some Pacific atolls sit simply 1 to 2 meters above sea degree and are slowly disappearing as waters rise. Saltwater intrusion threatens ingesting water provides and crops.
Their economies rely on tourism, agriculture and fishing, all sectors simply disrupted by local weather change. For instance, coral reefs are bleaching extra usually and dying resulting from ocean warming and acidification, undermining fisheries, marine biodiversity and financial sectors resembling tourism.
When disasters hit, the price of restoration usually forces these international locations to tackle debt. Local weather change additionally undermines their credit score rankings and investor confidence, making it tougher to get the cash to finance adaptive measures.
The Maldives, proven in a satellite tv for pc picture from 2020, has a median elevation of lower than 5 ft (1.5 meters) above sea degree. With restricted land the place individuals can dwell, the nation has tried to construct up new areas of its islands for housing.
NASA Earth Observatory
Tuvalu and Kiribati have mentioned digital nationhood and leasing land from different international locations so their individuals can relocate whereas nonetheless retaining citizenship. Some projections counsel nations just like the Maldives or Marshall Islands might grow to be largely uninhabitable inside many years.
For these international locations, sea-level rise is taking greater than their land – they’re shedding their historical past and id within the course of. The concept of changing into local weather refugees and separating individuals from their homelands could be culturally damaging, emotionally painful and politically fraught as they transfer to new international locations.
Greater than a nonbinding opinion
The Worldwide Court docket of Justice, generally known as the ICJ or World Court docket, can assist settle disputes between states when requested, or it might probably difficulty advisory opinions on authorized questions referred to it by approved U.N. our bodies such because the Common Meeting or Safety Council. The advisory opinion course of permits its 15 judges to weigh in on summary authorized points – resembling nuclear weapons or the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories – and not using a formal dispute between states.
Whereas the courtroom’s advisory opinions are nonbinding, they’ll nonetheless have a robust impression, each legally and politically.
The rulings are thought of authoritative statements relating to questions of worldwide legislation. They usually make clear or in any other case affirm current authorized obligations which might be binding.
What the courtroom determined
The ICJ was requested to weigh in on two questions on this case:
“What are the obligations of States under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system … from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases?”
“What are the legal consequences under these obligations for States where they, by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system?”
In its 140-page opinion, the courtroom cited worldwide treaties and related scientific background to affirm that obligations to guard the atmosphere are certainly a matter of worldwide environmental legislation, worldwide human rights legislation and common ideas of state accountability.
The choice implies that within the authoritative opinion of the worldwide authorized neighborhood, all international locations are underneath an obligation to contribute to the efforts to cut back international greenhouse emissions.
To the second query, the courtroom discovered that within the occasion of a breach of any such obligation, three extra obligations come up:
The nation in breach of its obligations should cease its polluting exercise, which might imply extra greenhouse gasoline emissions on this case.
It should make sure that such actions don’t happen sooner or later.
It should make reparations to affected states by way of cleanup, financial fee and apologies.
The courtroom affirmed that every one international locations have a authorized obligation underneath customary worldwide legislation, which refers to common guidelines that come up from widespread practices amongst states, to forestall hurt to the local weather. It additionally clarified that particular person international locations could be held accountable, even in a disaster brought on by many international locations and different entities. And it emphasised that international locations which have contributed essentially the most to local weather change could bear higher accountability for repairing the injury underneath a world legislation doctrine known as “common but differentiated responsibility,” which is often present in worldwide treaties in regards to the atmosphere.
Whereas the ICJ’s opinion doesn’t assign blame to particular international locations or set off direct reparations, it might present help for future authorized motion in each worldwide and nationwide courts.
What does the ICJ opinion imply for the US?
Within the U.S., this advisory opinion is unlikely to have a lot authorized impression, regardless of a long-standing constitutional precept that “international law is part of U.S. law.”
U.S. courts hardly ever deal with worldwide legislation that has not been integrated into home legislation as binding. And the U.S. has not consented to ICJ jurisdiction in earlier local weather circumstances.
Contentious circumstances earlier than worldwide tribunals could be introduced by one nation towards one other, however they require the consent of all of the international locations concerned. So there’s little likelihood that america’ accountability for local weather harms will probably be adjudicated by the World Court docket anytime quickly.
Nonetheless, the courtroom’s opinion sends a transparent message: All international locations are legally obligated to forestall local weather hurt and can’t escape accountability just because they aren’t the one nation responsible.
The unanimous ruling is especially exceptional given the present hostile political local weather in america and different industrial nations round local weather change and responses to it. It represents a very forceful assertion by the worldwide neighborhood that the accountability to make sure the well being of the worldwide atmosphere is a authorized obligation held by your complete world.
The takeaway
The ICJ’s advisory opinion marks a turning level within the international effort to carry international locations answerable for local weather change.
Susceptible international locations now have a extra concrete, legally grounded base to say rights and press for accountability towards historic and ongoing local weather hurt – together with monetary claims.
How it is going to be used within the coming years stays unclear, however the opinion offers small island states specifically a robust narrative and a authorized device set.
