Overview

• The 500-page advisory opinion formally recognizes a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right under international law
• It finds that a state’s failure to adopt appropriate measures to protect the climate system can constitute an internationally wrongful act requiring cessation of harmful conduct and restitution on a case-by-case basis
• President Yuji Iwasawa emphasized that climate change poses an urgent existential threat capable of impairing fundamental rights including the right to life
• Although non-binding, the opinion carries significant moral and persuasive weight and is expected to inform global and domestic climate litigation following a unanimous UN General Assembly request
• UN experts, NGOs and national courts such as Italy’s Court of Cassation have hailed the ruling as a basis for new legal actions holding governments and potentially companies accountable