Countries must protect human right to a stable climate, court rules

The Guardian

a day ago

There is a human right to a stable climate and states have a duty to protect it, a top court has ruled.
Announcing the publication of a landmark advisory opinion on climate change on Thursday, Nancy Hernández López, president of the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR), said climate change carries 'extraordinary risks' that are felt particularly keenly by people who are already vulnerable.
In the strongly worded and wide-ranging 300-page document setting out its perspective on the climate emergency and human rights, the court says states have legal obligations to protect people alive today and future generations from the impacts of climate change. That includes taking 'urgent and effective' actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions based on the best available science, to adapt, to cooperate internationally, and to guard against the threat of climate disinformation.
The inquiry was instigated by Colombia and Chile, which in 2023 asked what legal responsibilities states have to tackle climate change and to stop them breaching people's human rights.
The Costa Rica-based court received hundreds of submissions and held a series of hearings last year in Barbados and the Brazilian cities of Brasília and Manaus.
A wide variety of states and regional bodies, academics and civil society groups – as well as individual victims of climate change themselves – were allowed to participate.
'The evidence we have seen and received during the hearing and written submissions shows that there is no margin for indifference,' López said.
'Success depends on all of us.'
The IACHR's founding purpose is to interpret and apply the American convention on human rights, a treaty ratified by members of the Organization of American States (OAS). But its newly published opinion takes into account a broad range of national, regional and international laws and principles. And it affirms that the findings not just apply only to signatories of the convention but to all 35 members of the OAS, which includes the United States and Canada.
The court affirmed the right to a healthy environment, and said for the first time that this includes the right to a stable climate.
This means states have legal obligations to regulate emissions from both public and private organisations.
The court says all businesses have a responsibility not to harm human rights but those that have emitted huge volumes of greenhouse gas emissions in the past or present have a particular responsibility 'due to the risk created by their activities'. It singles out the exploration, extraction, transportation and processing of fossil fuels, cement manufacturing and agro-industry.
States must set tougher requirements for such sectors, it says, suggesting changes to business operating conditions, taxation, contributions to just transition plans and strategies, investment in education, adaptation measures and addressing loss and damage. If companies do not comply, it suggests the polluting activities should stop and states consider demanding compensation for the harm caused to the climate.
It adds that states should pass laws so that transnational corporations and conglomerates can be fully held to account for the emissions of their subsidiaries.
States also have a duty to ensure a fair transition to a cleaner society, and must ensure that this does not in itself involve breaching human rights, for example, when mining for critical minerals needed for electric vehicles.
'This is not just about the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy,' said Marcella Ribeiro, a senior human rights and environment attorney for the Asociación Interamericana para la Defensa del Ambiente (Aida), an environmental law organisation that works in Latin America. 'This is an opportunity for a structural transformation that will correct historical inequality and protect people and ecosystems.'
The IACHR also recognised the rights of nature and states have a duty to restore damage to ecosystems caused by climate change.
Luisa Gómez, senior attorney for the Center for International Environmental Law, said the court made a 'critical connection' between the effects of the climate crisis on the rights of people and ecosystems, and how those responsible for guaranteeing those rights should react. 'It sends a clear message that impunity in climate matters can no longer be tolerated.'
The inter-American court of human rights is the second of four top courts to publish an advisory opinion on climate change.
The first court to publish its opinion, the international tribunal for the law of the sea, concluded last year that greenhouse gases are pollutants that are wrecking the marine environment, and states have a legal responsibility to control them.
The international court of justice held hearings on its own opinion last December and is expected to publish in the coming months. Meanwhile, the African court on human and people's rights has only just begun the process.
These documents are technically non-binding but are considered authoritative because they summarise existing law. And they are expected to be used in future litigation and political negotiations.
Viviana Krsticevic, executive director of the Centre for Justice and International Law, a human rights NGO which supported Colombia and Chile's request for the advisory opinion, said the new opinion gives a 'very rich roadmap' for responding to the climate emergency across society, including setting a series of standards for national climate strategies that could be very important for the forthcoming COP30 in Brazil.