Climate protesters demonstrate outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Wednesday ahead of a non-binding judgment from the top U.N. court on what legal obligation, if any, countries have to prevent climate change. Photo by Lina Selg/EPA
The International Court of Justice was set to hand down a landmark ruling Wednesday on what, if anything, nations are legally obligated to do to prevent climate change and whether they are liable for the harm already caused by their emissions.
ICJ President Judge Iwasawa Yuji, will read out the opinion of the 15-judge bench — which is advisory only — in open court this afternoon, wrapping up seven months of deliberations in a case brought by the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, according to a court news release.
The decision of the U.N. court, which could establish a legal benchmark for action on the climate crisis, comes more than two years after Vanuatu successfully lobbied the U.N. General Assembly to vote to seek the opinion of the ICJ.
After years of lobbying by Vanuatu, one of several nations under threat from sea-level rise, particularly in the South Pacific, was able to get in front of justices the question of what international law says about countries’ obligations to protect the climate from man-made carbon emissions.
It was also able to get their view on the legal consequences for governments when their acts, or lack of action, have caused significant climatic and environmental damage.
Testifying in The Hague back in December, Vanuatu Climate Change Special Envoy Ralph Regenvanu said the proceedings could prove “the most consequential case in the history of humanity,” while Attorney General Arnold Kiel Loughman said the stakes were sky high.
“The survival of my people and so many others is on the line,” he told the court.
Average global sea level has risen 1.7 inches in the 10-year period to 2023, with higher increases in some areas of the Pacific Ocean, driven by a 1.3 degrees Celsius global temperature rise compared to the period before humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels with the advent of industrialization.
Major oil and gas producers, including the United States and Russia, take strong issue with the ICJ’s involvement, but Wednesday’s ruling in principle caps off a run of incremental gains, including a case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica.
The IACHR ruled that countries were legally bound to avoid harming the environment, protect ecosystems and rehabilitate those damaged by human activity.
In 2024, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg handed down a precedent ordering countries to do more to reduce the “serious adverse effects” of climate change on their populations.
The case brought by a Swiss women’s organization alleged that their government’s climate policies violated human rights law entitling them to “a private and family life” because older women in particular were more vulnerable to climate change as they were more likely to die in heatwaves.
They successfully argued that the Swiss government was not taking sufficient action to address, mitigate and adapt to climate change.
