On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its landmark advisory opinion (opinion) on the obligations of states with respect to climate change. Presented as a response to the UN General Assembly’s request under Resolution 77/276, the opinion is hailed as a landmark. Yet, when examined through a human rights lens, it reveals normative advances and institutional restraint.

The ICJ linked states’ duties to protect the climate system with fundamental human rights such as the right to life, health, food, and a healthy environment. However, despite its strengths, the opinion stops short of addressing the accountability gap that has plagued climate justice efforts globally. Notably, the ICJ solidifies the normative linkage between climate change and human rights, it misses an opportunity to give practical force to those.

Human Rights at the Centre - But How Firmly?

The ICJ recognizes that climate change has grave implications for the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. Paragraphs 122 to 130 of the opinion underline that the adverse effects of climate change directly undermine the rights to life, health, and food, disproportionately harming already vulnerable groups including women, children, indigenous peoples, and future generations. ICJ affirms that these rights are not abstract or future-oriented but are being actively violated by states’ acts and omissions in climate governance. Yet ICJ’s treatment of human rights remains largely descriptive rather than doctrinal. The opinion refrains from articulating the legal status of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment under customary international law. While it acknowledges its recognition in UN resolutions and in national constitutions, the ICJ ultimately avoids affirming it as a legally binding norm. In doing so, it misses a key opportunity to bolster global human rights law by elevating environmental protection as a standalone, enforceable right.

Comparative Jurisprudence

This reticence becomes particularly visible when compared with recent jurisprudence from regional human rights bodies. In its Advisory Opinion OC-23/17, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ held that the right to a healthy environment is an autonomous right under the American Convention. Similarly, the European Court of Human Rights in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland (2024) took the bold step of holding Switzerland accountable for failing to meet its emissions reduction targets, thereby violating the applicants’ right to life and to private and family life under Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention.

By contrast, the ICJ’s opinion remains timid. It fails to clarify whether failures in national climate policy such as insufficient regulation of private emissions or fossil fuel subsidies amount to violations of human rights obligations. It also avoids endorsing the principle of differentiated responsibilities, despite the disproportionate role played by high-emitting states in causing the crisis. The absence of an analysis of historical emissions and climate finance further weakens its practical impact for rights-based redress.

Erga Omnes Obligations: Symbolism Over Substance?

The ICJ does emphasize that obligations to protect the climate are erga omnes owed to the international community as a whole and that violations of these obligations can give rise to legal consequences. But again, the advisory opinion does not translate this into enforceable duties of reparation or restitution. Where ICJ could have acknowledged the right to an effective remedy guaranteed under human rights law, it instead retreats to a general formulation of state responsibility. As a result, there remains a gap between rights recognized and rights protected. The most vulnerable, already suffering climate loss and damages, are left without a clear legal route to seek remedy, reparations, or compensation.

A Missed Opportunity for Structural Change?

What makes this caution more striking is that the ICJ was not acting under the constraints of contentious jurisdiction. An advisory opinion offers a unique opportunity for the Court to act as a moral and legal compass. In its 2004 advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the ICJ has not hesitated to engage more forcefully with legal consequences and rights violations. By comparison, in the climate opinion, the ICJ appears to retreat from the opportunity to assert a structural view of human rights, one that recognizes the embedded inequalities in the global political economy of climate change. It leaves unresolved how developing states especially small island nations might seek redress for harm already suffered, and whether they can demand reparations from historically responsible actors.

The ICJ’s opinion is a valuable addition to the human rights climate law interface. It affirms the centrality of rights in understanding climate harms, sets important interpretive baselines, and opens avenues for future litigation. But its silences on attribution, accountability, and the role of corporate actors underscore the distance between legal recognition and meaningful remedy. In the climate courtroom, the law has now spoken. Whether justice follows depends on who listens and who acts.

Shelal L. Rajput is an advocate based in New Delhi and was working with Trilegal's dispute resolution team. A 2024 graduate of Symbiosis Law School, Pune, he holds a B.B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) degree. Shelal is passionate about legal research, writing and exploring the evolving contours of dispute resolution. His academic and professional interests span constitutional law, human rights, corporate and commercial law, and public law. He also writes extensively on matters of international relations, particularly where law intersects with pressing social and political developments..