Latin America court calls for unified climate action as legal fights mount
SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Member states must cooperate to tackle climate change and not take actions that set back environmental protections, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) said in a non-binding advisory opinion issued on Thursday.
The court holds jurisdiction over 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries and the advisory opinion, requested by Colombia and Chile, said that countries must also regulate and monitor corporate activities, especially those that generate greenhouse gases.
The opinion also said companies must adopt "effective" measures to combat climate change and states should discourage "greenwashing" and undue corporate influence in politics and regulations related to climate change.
States must also pass legislation for companies to act with "due diligence when it comes to human rights and climate change along their value chain."
States must also set binding GHG emission mitigation goals that "are as ambitious as possible" with concrete time frames. Cooperation must go beyond transboundary harm, the opinion said, and should go beyond mitigation and adaptation and cover all necessary measures to comprehensively respond to the climate emergency.
Maria Antonia Tigre, director of global climate change litigation at the Sabin Center at Columbia Law School, said that many countries rely on these opinions as precedent, even though they're non-binding.
"The (IACHR) is a little bit of a special case because it's highly influential in domestic courts," Tigre said, adding that regional supreme courts often cite IACHR opinions.
"The other aspect is if there is a contentious case on the topic, it will likely follow what's said in the advisory opinion," she said, citing a 2024 IACHR as an example.
In 2024, the IACHR ordered Peru to pay damages to a mining town, a decision that followed the 2017 interpretation of an 2017 advisory opinion the court issued that stated that a healthy environment was a human right.
The ruling builds on a global wave of climate litigation as countries, organizations and individuals are increasingly turning to courts for climate action.
Last year, the European Court of Human Rights said climate inaction violates human rights and a South Korean court said that the country's climate change law does not effectively shield future generations.
Vanuatu has also urged the top United Nations court to recognize the harm caused by climate change in its judgment on the legal obligation of countries to fight it and address the consequences of contributing to global warming. The ruling is expected this year.
The IACHR opinion noted that climate litigation is an "emerging field" but also an increasingly essential tool for holding states and companies accountable for climate change and obligations.
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