Process
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the highest judicial organ of the UN that is tasked with settling legal disputes in the international system. Its decisions and advisory opinions shape state action and policies, and establish authoritative standards on how nations ought to behave towards each other.
On 23 July 2025, the Court issued a 35-page advisory opinion that calls for legal and moral accountability in climate change policies for all nations, citing it as an existential threat to nature and the well being of present and future generations [1]. It traces an unbroken thread of the law, from decision making to emission targets, to the formulation of adaptation and mitigation plans, to the implementation of policies that ultimately affect the planet.
Let’s rewind a little and look at the timeline of the ruling:
- March 2023: the UNGA unanimously adopted resolution 77/276 “Request for an advisory opinion of the ICJ on the obligations of States in respect of climate change.”
- 12 April 2023: the request was transmitted to the Court by the Secretary-General (SG) of the UN by a letter.
- June 2023: the ICJ granted the request.
- March 2024: the ICJ recorded 91 written submissions filed by States to build legal arguments, evidence, and state perspectives needed to answer the UNGA request for an advisory opinion on climate change. Following these submissions, participating parties reviewed the submissions. This resulted in 62 written comments being filed in August 2024.
- 02-13 December 2024: Public hearings were held at the ICJ with participation from 96 States and 11 international organisations in the form of oral statements. This is the highest level of participation in the history of the Court and its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice.
- 23 July 2025: the ICJ delivered a unanimous advisory opinion on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change, marking the first time the Court ruled on the matter.
- 06 February 2026: the government of Vanuatu and its core working group consisting of Barbados, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Jamaica, Kenya, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, the Netherlands, Palau, the Philippines, Singapore and Sierra Leone, introduced the zero draft.
- 01 May 2026: the final text was circulated and 120 states accepted the invitation to co-sponsor the resolution before the final vote.
- 20 May 2026: The resolution was adopted by UNGA with 141 votes in favour.
The entire process took roughly 3 years to the adoption and approximately 3 months in negotiations from the zero draft. Following the release of the zero draft, the US launched a diplomatic campaign issuing formal demarche to its embassies to lobby foreign governments to weaken the text, arguing that it threatened Western Industries and economies [2]. The government of Vanuatu conducted nearly a dozen informal consultations, which led to softened language [3] and most notably completely deleting the proposed International Register of Damage that would have tracked financial claims against major polluters [4].
Youth were the primary engine behind this historic achievement and drove the entire legal strategy from its inception, actively lobbying diplomats to ensure the resolution contained concrete compliance frameworks rather than symbolic language.
The adoption of the resolution by the UN was initiated by 27 law students from the University of South Pacific (USP) who formed a youth-led organisation called the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC) in 2019 and pushed the Government of Vanuatu [1] to bring the resolution to the Pacific Island Forum in 2022, further aiming to lobby the ICJ to establish legally binding obligations.
Following the ICJ’s landmark 2025 ruling, PISFCC collaborated with international groups in co-drafting the Youth Climate Justice Handbook that defined progressive legal arguments on climate justice. The handbook was a direct response to the questions of the UNGA on the ICJ advisory opinion.
UNGA Resolution on International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change
“I welcome the adoption of the General Assembly resolution on the ICJ’s advisory opinion on climate change; a powerful affirmation of international law, climate justice, science & the responsibility of states to protect people from the escalating climate crisis,”
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Fundamentally, the thread of accountability under the Paris Agreement runs along the very same policies that have shaped current climate action and inaction.
While 141 countries voted in favour of the adoption, it was opposed by a number of nations whose economies are driven by oil including Belarus, Iran, Israel, Liberia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the US and Yemen. The COP31 host, Türkiye, was among the 28 countries that abstained from the vote [5].
Ultimately, the adoption of this resolution is significant. It shows that while powerful states can dilute language, they can no longer halt the growing momentum towards climate action and accountability.
Outcomes
The States’ obligations are “to act with due diligence” rather than absolute responsibility because the international system operates within a “sovereignty” context [6]. The resolution:
- ”Calls upon” States to prevent significant harm to the environment and climate system by using all means to prevent activities, including emissions produced within their borders;
- “Urges” States to implement measures to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and establish pathways to transition away from fossil fuels;
- “Calls on” States to follow through on their existing climate pledges under the Paris Agreement;
- “Urges” States to cooperate in good faith;
- Respects and safeguards the fundamental human rights to life, health, and an adequate standard of living for individuals and communities bearing the brunt of climate change impacts.
The resolution does not create a new treaty that which states are obligated to comply with, but it politically amplifies the ICJ’s interpretation of States’ obligation to protect citizens from the harms of climate change, acknowledging all existing treaties including the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, the Vienna Convention, the Montreal Protocol, the CBD, and the UNCCD. Like most UN resolutions, this outcome offers an overarching normative framework that links climate change to human rights and States’ responsibility.
Looking to the future
So what happens when a party fails to act with due diligence? First, the resolution does not instantly criminalise climate inaction. Instead, it makes it harder for states to plausibly claim that climate negligence is legally neutral.
According to the resolution, states’ inaction in implementing measures to address the cause of the climate crisis can be considered a “wrongful act” [6].
Under international law, states may be obligated to resolve their wrongful act through three distinct ways:
- Stopping the wrongful behaviour if it is still ongoing
- Promising and taking steps to make sure the wrongdoing does not happen again
- Making full amends to other affected country/ies, which may involve restoring what was lost, paying compensation, or offering a formal apology, provided it can be clearly shown that the harm was directly caused by the wrongful act.
The affirmation triggers state responsibility and introduces hard legal accountability into a diplomatic process historically governed by voluntary pledges. This provides a much needed additional weight to the UNFCCC COP processes, and a glimpse of the possibility of moving from intention to action at a faster pace than in the past.
