Dr. Saad Al-Otaibi
Munirah Al-Qahtani
DOI: https://doi.org/10.65271/MWHV3012
Abstract
This note examines the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice concerning states’ obligations in the context of climate change. It analyses the opinion in terms of its legal soundness and the extent to which it clarifies existing rules of international law. The note proceeds from a central question: to what extent does the opinion succeed in reconciling the rules of state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts with the distinctive and complex nature of climate-related harm? To answer this, it examines how the opinion addresses the elements of international responsibility in the context of climate-related harm, the extent to which it accounts for the differing geographical and economic circumstances of states, and its responsiveness to the challenges posed by the cumulative, multi-source nature of such harm.
The note concludes that, while the opinion makes a limited contribution to clarifying certain aspects of climate change treaties and their relationship with other rules of international law, it failed to address the more pressing questions concerning the mechanisms for implementing international responsibility in the context of climate change. This is particularly evident in its treatment of causation and attribution, where the Court merely reaffirmed established principles of state responsibility without explaining how such principles could be applied within the climate change context. Accordingly, the significance of the opinion lies not in the solutions it offered, but rather in its unintentional diagnosis of the shortcomings of the existing rules, revealing that addressing international responsibility for climate-related harm requires an intervention grounded in the will of states, and not an advisory opinion that confined itself to reaffirming the general principles of international responsibility in the face of a climate reality whose complexity exceeds the frameworks under which those principles arose.
Keywords: Climate Change, International Court of Justice, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, State Responsibility, Remedies, Causation and Attribution, Climate Litigation.