THE RESPONSIBILITY OF STATES IN CLIMATE CHANGE MATTERS IN LIGHT OF RECENT INTERNATIONAL JURISPRUDENCE
Keywords:
Judicial reasoning; climate change and human rights; climate chan ge litigationAbstract
The climate emergency requires States to adopt adequate policies to address it, yet many are reluctant to make choices that can truly keep global warming below 2°C, and preferably below 1.5°C. In the current anarchic international order, the guarantee of climate-related human rights is entrusted to the courts. Judges engage in a reciprocal and ongoing, non-hierarchical dialogue characterized by the exchange of legal concepts. Climate change litigation has pushed the courts to intervene in climate change matters, both at domestic and international levels. Courts’ decisions have begun to sketch the contours of the obligations of states in respect of climate change and the associated responsibilities. Two recent advisory opinions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice have given an order and enriched this framework, specifically outlining States’ binding obligations regarding climate change to protect individual rights and commitments to other States. A comparative analysis of these decisions, focused on specific themes, such as new rights-based and science-based environmental standards, specific obligations of States to prevent and combat climate change, climate vulnerabilities and human rights, intergenerational justice, is at the core of this paper and highlights similarities and differences in the reasoning of the two courts.
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