How Environmental Laws Are Shifting the Focus From Humans to Nature
From The Observatory
Source: Earth Food Life Project
Environmental laws are evolving from prioritizing human benefits to recognizing nature’s intrinsic rights; this is reflected in the small but growing number of countries that grant legal personhood to natural entities.
This article was produced by Earth • Food • Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute, with research support from Meghan Grady.
“How Environmental Laws Are Shifting the Focus From Humans to Nature” by Erika Schelby is licensed by the Observatory under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
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Introduction
The need to protect populations from environmental harm or contamination is not new. Whenever human welfare was imperiled, those in power within most ancient civilizations passed laws to address these issues.
History is replete with examples of this. For instance, there is evidence of the Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3000–1300 BCE) adapting to climate change, and early imperial China enacting protective laws, showing they were not “indifferent to environmental concerns.” In 2550 BCE, Mesopotamia achieved the world’s first water treaty between city-states—the agreement is now housed in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Meanwhile, the Roman Empire excelled in engineering and passed legislation to support public health and hygiene. Aqueducts carried fresh water into the cities while the Cloaca Maxima, a vast sewer system in Rome, managed wastewater.
Driven by industrialization and population growth, however, the ground realities have changed drastically over the last 200 years. Environmental issues demanded attention, action, and organization not only at the national but also at the international level. After years of preliminary work, especially by Sweden, the UN General Assembly convened the 1972 Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, which was attended by 122 countries. The conference aimed to make “environment a major issue” and was an event of groundbreaking significance, taking place during the Cold War and in an atmosphere of deep geopolitical tension. Unfortunately, the nations behind the Iron Curtain were unable to attend the meeting.
While the conference was a big step forward for international and legal cooperation, it remained entirely anthropocentric. The term refers to the Age of Humans, placing people and their needs at the “center of the universe,” rather than the natural world and other living beings, which are valued only insofar as they benefit humans.
A long, hard assessment 50 years later makes it clear that matters are not going too well for the environment and for all the planet’s inhabitants. Challenging the accepted point of view is the reality of the interdependence of all living and nonliving things on Earth and their right to exist and thrive. Nature and her ecosystems are increasingly being seen as having intrinsic value. These emerging views signal a shift toward ecocentrism, which is “derived etymologically from the Greek oikos (house) and kentron (center).” Ecocentrism is Earth law. It asserts that Earth is the home of all beings.
Through this article, we explore how and why a growing number of countries are granting legal personhood to nature, and why there is increasing interest in understanding the Earth system.
The Anthropocentric Origins of Environmental Law
The belief that human beings are the most important species on the planet is very old. It is often traced to the Book of Genesis in the Bible, where humans are counseled to subdue the Earth and have dominion over all living things. Human superiority is ingrained in many of the dominant religions and philosophies of the West.
When nature is viewed primarily as a resource for human benefit and utilization, this leads to anthropocentric policies. Some early examples of such policymaking include the first modern environmental statutes, such as the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 and the Forest Transfer Act of 1905. Meanwhile, Yellowstone National Park, created in 1872, was seen as an attempt to support conservation while ensuring the enjoyment of visitors.
In 1962, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published and served as a critical voice, contributing greatly to the growth of the environmental movement. Astronaut William Anders’s image “Earthrise”—a photo taken in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission—made a similar impact by showing our small planet floating in space. The next big steps were the establishment of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969 and the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.
The Stockholm 1972 conference, meanwhile, issued 26 principles. Its language stated that “man” is a being of his environment, but then stressed his power of transforming it. The declaration’s opening statement reads as follows:
“Man is both creature and moulder of his environment, which gives him physical sustenance and affords him the opportunity for intellectual, moral, social and spiritual growth… through the rapid acceleration of science and technology, man has acquired the power to transform his environment in countless ways and on an unprecedented scale. Both aspects of man’s environment, the natural and the man-made, are essential to his well-being and the enjoyment of basic human rights, the right to life itself.”
After Stockholm 1972, the International Environmental Law gradually evolved. In the beginning, there were no rules and no institutions to make them, resulting in the formation of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The global community had to start from scratch. A growing understanding of the planet’s health and scientific knowledge of its deterioration, along with public awareness, led to agreements, statutes, goals, and treaties. Many of these were non-binding and voluntary, leading to an uphill battle to hold countries accountable for their actions.
The next two milestone conferences were the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the Paris Agreement of 2016. And over the last 50 years, while there have been many other national and international efforts and gatherings, the serious environmental crisis has continued to worsen, raising the question of why.
As of 2024, there were an estimated 8.2 billion human beings on our planet. The rising populations in countries and the unequal distribution of resources have left people preoccupied with meeting their immediate needs and those of their children. Armed conflict further adds to land degradation and food insecurity. When such circumstances arise, all the “best-laid schemes of mice and men” are swept aside. Those with vested interests defend their positions tooth and nail, politics becomes harsh and volatile, and the task of safeguarding our planet flies out the window.
The Rise of Ecocentrism
The rise of ecocentrism represents a logical advance toward an environmental philosophy that considers all beings and ecosystems as essential to the well-being of the planet. Anthropocentrism’s shortcomings result from the persistent infighting among human populations, class conflict, and divergent social and legal traditions. In contrast to humans, nature and natural entities have no inherent rights. But they need rights and personhood. Otherwise, there can be no equilibrium on Earth, and such a narrow-minded view destroys the earthly foundations humans depend on for their survival.
Aldo Leopold—wildlife ecologist, environmentalist, and writer—is credited with establishing the principles of ecocentrism. His vision is fleshed out in his books Land Ethic and A Sand County Almanac.
A more detailed look finds that Leopold was greatly influenced by John Muir (1838–1914), founder of the Sierra Club, who wrote, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” Muir, in turn, was inspired by researcher Alexander von Humboldt. Writing to a friend in September 1865, Muir said, “How intensely I desire to be a Humboldt.” As for Humboldt, he believed in nature as an interconnected whole and regarded science as free, cooperative, and meant to be shared with others.
Evidently, Humboldt’s ideas point to a conceptual ecosystem, as shown by Aaron Sachs, author of The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism. Sachs discusses Humboldt’s “chain of connection,” which is seen as existing among all things, both in nature and in human thought and activity. As Humboldt put it, “In considering the study of physical phenomena… we find its noblest and most important result to be a knowledge of the chain of connection, by which all natural forces are linked together, and made mutually dependent on each other.” It was a way of interconnection that appealed to 19th-century American intellectuals and naturalists.
According to Sachs, Muir was a disciple of Humboldt. And so was Leopold, argued John Hannigan, who wrote in his book Rethinking Environmental Sociology that “Humboldt’s legacy lay not only in natural science but equally in social science, where he pioneered a moral position that critiqued colonialism, environmental despoilation, indigenous work conditions, slavery, [and] violence against tribal groups.”
This particular “chain of connection” between all things ruptured. If a break occurs, erasure happens. However, the seeds of ideas are resilient. They may engage in some evolutionary shapeshifting and regain life. Christopher D. Stone’s 1972 book Should Trees Have Standing? was published the same year as the Stockholm Conference and first introduced the idea of legal personhood for natural entities. This aligns with many Indigenous values and even with legal perspectives that differ from the common law followed by many countries and their property-based ownership regimes.
At first, Stone’s idea was not taken seriously. But during the decades that followed, the ecocentric Rights of Nature movement steadily gained momentum.
“According to the ‘Rights of Nature’ doctrine, an ecosystem is entitled to legal personhood status and… has the right to defend itself in a court of law against harms. … Furthermore, when an ecosystem is declared a ‘subject of rights,’ it has the right to legal representation by a guardian—much like a charitable trust designates a trustee—who will act on their behalf and in their best interest,” according to the Columbia Climate School.
Case Studies: Countries Granting Legal Personhood to Nature
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) provides a timeline illustrating the global evolution of rights-of-nature initiatives and laws. From the 1970s onward, the number of cases has grown rapidly through 2022.
“Led by Indigenous peoples, the rights of nature movement has grown dramatically over the last two decades, from constitutional protections in Ecuador to national legislation and court rulings in Spain, New Zealand, Panama, India, and beyond,” pointed out Inside Climate News.
Within this article, we explore a few significant examples of countries that have embraced such initiatives.
Ecuador
In 2008, Ecuador became the first pioneering country to recognize the rights of nature in its constitution. Under Chapter 7, Articles 71 to 74, “Pachamama,” or Mother Earth, is granted the right to exist and to “maintain and generate its cycles, structure, functions, and its processes in evolution.” Under this change, individuals and communities can bring legal action if these rights are violated, holding both public and private entities accountable.
The constitutional provision, which was strongly influenced by Ecuador’s Indigenous movement, “echoes core… [tenets] of ecological science,” according to Inside Climate News, and has helped nature prevail “over mining companies and polluting industries in dozens of lawsuits there.”
New Zealand
On March 16, 2017, the Whanganui River was the first river in the modern world to gain the same legal rights as a human person. This concluded a nearly 150-year battle for the Māori people, who drew their mauri (life force) from the river. The Ruruku Whakatupua—Deed of Settlement recognizes the river as an “indivisible and living whole comprising the Whanganui River from the mountains to the sea, incorporating its tributaries and its physical and metaphysical elements.”
India
A few days after the New Zealand decision, the Uttarakhand High Court in India granted legal personhood to the Ganga and Yamuna rivers, as they were in danger of losing their existence. Both the Ganges and its tributary, the Yamuna, were severely polluted. Hindus worship Ganga Mata, or “the mother,” and it is a lifeline for more than 500 million people.
However, the state government of Uttarakhand challenged the ruling in India’s Supreme Court, objecting that the decision was legally unsustainable. In July 2017, the Supreme Court overturned the earlier ruling by the high court.
Colombia
Colombia has adopted an ecocentric approach that understands that human rights and healthy environments are intimately connected. Its Constitutional Court has recognized the Atrato River (2016) “a legal subject with rights to protection, conservation, maintenance, and restoration,” and the country’s Supreme Court ruled the Colombian Amazon (2018) ecosystem “as a subject of rights.”
Colombia utilizes a unique constitutional mechanism, the tutela, which allows individuals to request protection of their fundamental rights, including the right to a healthy environment. This mechanism has been important in advancing the rights of nature through legal action.
Bangladesh
In 2019, the High Court of Bangladesh, which was hearing a public interest litigation, decided that the Turag River and all 700 rivers in the country were “living entities” with rights as “legal persons.” To implement this landmark decision, the National River Conservation Commission was appointed in loco parentis and charged with preventing pollution and encroachment. These rights can be enforced against both private and public (government) entities. This decision was upheld by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in 2020.
The United States
Actions in support of the rights of nature are found at the local level rather than at the state or federal levels. It is a bottom-up approach used by a growing number of concerned communities and tribal nations.
Tamaqua Borough, Pennsylvania, granted legal rights of nature in 2006, which were used to ban toxic sewage dumping as a violation of these rights. Meanwhile, in 2010, the city council of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, unanimously passed an ordinance banning fracking and recognizing the rights of nature, becoming “the first major municipality in the United States” to do so.
According to CELDF, multiple communities in several states have enacted rights-of-nature laws. Among them is the remote and sparsely populated county of Mora, New Mexico. In 2013, oil and gas corporations acquired rights from the state for drilling operations in Mora County. The “residents feared that extraction activities would degrade the natural environment and their way of life,” according to the Environmental and Earth Law Journal. This led to the passing of the 2013 Mora ordinance, which banned oil and gas production there. It is an example of the deep-rooted symbiotic relationship this local group of people has with nature and what they call “La Querencia de la Tierra” (love for the land). The ordinance stated:
“Rights of La Querencia de la Tierra: The farm-based Indigenous/mestizo (mixed blood) people who created the original Mora County culture considered the Earth to be living and holy; thus, they referred to their homeland as ‘La Querencia de la Tierra,’ Love of the Land. This sacredness connotes an intrinsic right of the land to exist without defilement.”
In addition, the document stated that “Mora County’s ordinance prohibits fracking activities, declares federal or state drilling permits invalid, nullifies corporate violators’ status as legal ‘persons,’ and restricts violators’ access to the courts.”
Among Native American nations, the following have recognized rights of nature: the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, the Ho-Chunk Nation, the Navajo Nation, the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma, the Yurok Tribe (Klamath River), the Nez Perce Tribe (Snake River), and the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin.
Motivations Behind the Shift
In the current scenario, when the worldviews of Indigenous communities appear to offer the most coherent understanding of what this Earth requires, it may be advantageous to remember some things from the past, not out of nostalgia, but as a wake-up call. With time, we no longer follow the quaint ancestral traditions of earlier generations. Among them was the wisdom of knowing how to coexist with nature.
Preindustrial humans venerated, respected, relied on, and also feared the raw force of nature. To better understand natural phenomena, people personalized many of the elements they encountered. This may not count as legal “personhood” as understood in the 21st century, but rivers, mountains, forests, waters, harvests, and hunts all had deities or spirits. In the West, this is still known through the myths and legends of the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Nordic sagas. In fact, all civilizations and communities across the globe have had their own belief systems and cosmologies.
A brief examination of just one category—the colorful and large assembly of river gods, goddesses, and sacred animals—shows that our ancestors in Asia, Africa, the Americas, Australia, and Europe maintained relationships with their own specific water deities.
Such reverence and respect for natural entities were apparently the normal stance for people who were not yet as estranged from their environs as we are now. In fact, the last 200 to 300 years of rapid, frequently reckless development may have resulted in humanity’s exceptionalism.
The human bond with nature diminished as urban concentrations and megacities grew ever bigger worldwide and agriculture became industrialized. Currently, just 5 percent of Indigenous peoples live on and watch over one-third of the planet’s nonurban land. They have accumulated knowledge and insights for millennia. Indigenous people protect biodiversity and safeguard natural resources. They are also exceedingly vulnerable to insatiable extraction demands—destructive interventions by a world that knows no limits—and to the impacts of climate change.
“As the inheritors of unique ways of living, Indigenous peoples have long suffered discrimination and worse, according to the UN. But despite a history of oppression, their ability to live in harmony with nature is increasingly understood and appreciated… Although they make up less than 5 percent of the global population, Indigenous people protect 80 percent of Earth’s remaining biodiversity,” stated the Business and Human Rights Center.
The imbalance in this situation is harmful, and the recognition that many Indigenous perspectives and cosmologies view nature as alive and possessing intrinsic value aligns well with the rights of nature movement, which is gaining increasing international traction.
Big international gatherings—such as the annual UN Conference of the Parties (COP)—now devote considerable attention to developing legal issues. For instance, at COP28, held in 2023 in Dubai, the world’s most prominent law associations strategized for a sustainable future. Among them were the American Bar Association, the International Bar Association, the Brazilian Bar Association, and the Law Society of England and Wales. COP28 acknowledged the important role of jurisprudence in addressing the climate crisis and in establishing frameworks to meet upcoming obligations. Simultaneously, climate activists and demonstrators urged stronger climate action and demanded accountability from world leaders.
Rights of nature advocates view the relationship between humans and nature as interdependent and have called for a corresponding legal framework. In their view, if all else is reversible and susceptible to rollbacks, only the rule of law and the legal personhood of natural entities can be the shield protecting them from continuing harm.
The scientific community has added further value to the importance and need for protecting the environment. “As scientists have flocked to the [right of nature] movement… they’ve given it a new layer of credibility—and enforceability. They’re helping to craft laws rooted in scientific principles, collaborating with local communities to collect evidence for court cases and drawing on fields like ecology and neuroscience to provide a scientific basis for the movement’s core philosophies, ideas that Indigenous peoples have already validated through centuries of territorial stewardship,” explained the Inside Climate News article.
However, so far, most of the world’s traditional legal systems have tended to regard nature as property that can be used, abused, consumed, constricted, depleted, degraded, poisoned, and sold.
For the philosophical and legal rights-of-nature movement, these abuses necessitate nothing less than a paradigm shift from the anthropocentric to the ecocentric worldview. The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) helps provide a path forward. It brings together a network of organizations and people from all walks of life and about 100 countries dedicated to achieving the “universal adoption and implementation of legal systems that recognize, respect, and enforce Rights of Nature.”
“An essential step in achieving this is to create a system of jurisprudence that sees and treats nature as a fundamental, rights-bearing entity and not as mere property to be exploited at will,” GARN stated.
Challenges and Critiques
The challenges facing a rights-of-nature case are best highlighted by the 2016 ruling granting legal personhood to the Atrato River in northwestern Colombia. The area had endured decades of civil war, illicit drug and mining operations, criminal networks, private armies controlling large territories, and communities being subjected to ill treatment and acute neglect. All this represented the most difficult circumstances for implementing the legal rights of a river.
“In recent years, there has been an explosion of mechanisms that have granted rights to rivers and other natural entities. While this is important to overcome the anthropocentrism that has characterized conventional law, the truth is that the real work begins once the declaration is achieved,” said Rodrigo Rogelis to Scottish Legal News. Rogelis is a researcher with the Socio-legal Center for Territorial Defense SIEMBRA. He has been working alongside the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund and the University of Glasgow to support the implementation of the court’s decision.
Those involved with the implementation have worked hard and smart, fighting patiently for years against incredible odds. Rogelis said there are “reasons for hope” while he described the activities undertaken to “protect the river.”
“Some may think this is a small thing in relation to the paradigm shift that the rights of nature are invoking, but in the minutiae of the day-to-day work that makes these rights effective it can be a huge component,” he added.
However, when anthropocentric human rights-based climate litigation clashes with the rights-of-nature ecocentric approach, it becomes clear how things can get complicated. The Earth Law Center (ELC) points out that while the “human rights-based climate litigation has paved the way for the [rights of nature] movement in some ways, its strict anthropocentrism may ultimately prove to be at odds with the [rights of nature] movement’s ecocentric approach. These two legal movements thus have the potential to both mutually reinforce and conflict with one another.”
Despite various legal victories, setbacks occur. An important example is the personhood granted in 2017 to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India by the Uttarakhand High Court. However, the Uttarakhand government took the case to the Supreme Court of India. It overturned the earlier ruling and stated that the rivers cannot be “viewed as living entities.” The Ganges “is a lifeline to 500 million people.”
“Who speaks for nature?” emerged as an urgent question, one that resonated at the International Tribunal of Rights of Nature. Created in 2014, the tribunal describes its mission as follows:
“The tribunal aims to create a forum for people from all around the world to speak on behalf of nature, to protest the destruction of Earth, destruction that is often sanctioned by governments and corporations, and to make recommendations about Earth’s protection and restoration. The tribunal also has a strong focus on enabling Indigenous Peoples to share their unique concerns and solutions about land, water, and culture with the global community.”
In July 2025, ahead of the November COP30 in the Amazonian city of Belém, Brazil, Indigenous leaders from the Amazon brought a dark message to the financial center of London. “Earth is ill,” said Dario Yanomami, vice-president of the Hutukara Yanomami Association.
There are too many dark messages out there. And the answer to the question “Who speaks for nature?” remains the same: for better or for worse, humans do.
The Road Ahead
Environmental law is not a monolithic undertaking but a work in progress. It evolves. Klaus Bosselmann, emeritus professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, recounts a transformative instance at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in his 2024 paper, “Saving the Earth for Future Generations: Some Reflections.”
“In 2016, nearly 100 professors of environmental law adopted a manifesto called ‘From Environmental Law to Ecological Law’ at the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Colloquium in Oslo, Norway. The ‘Oslo Manifesto’ has since been endorsed by hundreds of environmental lawyers and environmental law organizations from around the world. It has also led to the establishment of the Ecological Law and Governance Association (ELGA) in 2017. ELGA is a global network of legal scholars, practicing lawyers, and environmental activists committed to transforming law and governance at national and international levels.
… In our current legal system, Earth has no meaning or status. … On the other hand, we all know that critical planetary systems are at risk (the atmosphere, oceans, global biodiversity). We also know that protection efforts based on negotiations between states have not worked very well. A logical step forward is, therefore, to rather than relying on political compromises between states establish trusteeship obligations of states themselves. The sovereign state is not so sovereign as to destroy ecological systems of its own territory, transboundary systems and ultimately Earth.”
Dr. Bosselmann’s article provides a concise introduction to ecological law. He points out that guidance on Earth trusteeship is set out in two agreements by civil society: the Earth 2000 Charter and the 2018 Hague Principles.
Ecological law is an emerging and more comprehensive framework. It sees Earth as a whole, comprehends the required health of ecosystems on which humans and all life depend, and acknowledges interconnectedness. This approach scrutinizes complexity and uses the methods of systems theory. It emphasizes proactive and preventive actions by anticipating problems.
The rights of nature movement is valued as an indispensable activity and as a starting point for overcoming the prevailing anthropocentric attitude. It can rescue and protect irreplaceable parts of the natural world from further destruction, especially during the transitional period, until the global shift to ecocentric laws and governance is achieved.
As a science, ecology created concepts, terminology, and tools for measurement and analysis that became milestones across disciplines. Ecology is also strategically useful to jurists.
One milestone is the “planetary boundaries” framework. It was initiated in 2009 by 28 internationally known scientists under the leadership of Johan Rockström, former director of the Stockholm Resilience Center at Stockholm University, Sweden. The model gathers knowledge and research from many fields, analyzes human activities and their impact on the Earth system, and establishes safe limits for the amount of human stress that can be applied to Earth’s critical processes. These planetary boundaries are the quantitative limits on the “nine global change processes”: climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater change, alterations in biochemical flows, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol loading, stratospheric ozone depletion, and the introduction of novel entities.
According to the Stockholm Resilience Center, “Planetary boundaries are interdependent. … Action that affects one process… will affect the risks of the other processes. Only by respecting all nine boundaries can we maintain a safe operating space for humanity… The 2023 update… concluded that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed.”
Two other concepts have also become indicators of the shift toward ecological thinking and law: earth systems science and the global commons.
Earth System Science seeks to understand how our planet, as an integrated system, works and reacts to human influence and interference, which are too often detrimental. Earth science studies the interconnected elements of our world: the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere. It seeks to understand how these elements interact to function well as a whole. Earth science uses essential disciplines ranging from mathematics, chemistry, and biology to physics to gain insights. This does not come easily. The amount of scientific knowledge has grown so large that it is difficult to keep up, even with new findings within one’s own discipline. So far, science has explored many subjects in the greatest detail. It has penetrated countless arcane puzzle pieces of the natural world. But it has also created a fragmented vision and obscured the big picture.
There is much to discover about interconnections. Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability has introduced undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs, along with several other schools, to unlock the overarching understanding required on this subject.
The idea of the global commons was reborn from very ancient notions of shared resources. After all, who can “own” the atmosphere or the high seas? Today, the global commons comprises resources not owned or controlled by any single nation. They are essential, like the very air we breathe, and include the atmosphere, oceans, Antarctica, and outer space, which are accessible to all nations.
The global commons is also under threat and out of balance. To garner support for these vital resources, the Global Commons Alliance was launched. Its website provides information on goals and activities to protect and restore the global commons.
The one aspect that stands out in all efforts to assist the planet in regaining and maintaining its well-being is the urgent need to better understand and find the proper way to collaborate with the complex, interrelated processes by which Earth functions.
The Legal and Ethical Responsibility to Protect the Planet
After hearing about the July 23, 2025, advisory opinion given by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “This is a victory for our planet.” And so it was.
It was also a good day for the rights-of-nature movement and for the shift toward ecocentric environmental laws.
One of the functions of the International Court of Justice is that it gives “advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by duly authorized United Nations organs and agencies of the system.”
The advisory opinions are not binding. They clarify legal questions and remove ambiguities. They do not make laws; instead, they indirectly deal with existing and possibly conflicting piecemeal laws, which can cause confusion and foster a corresponding underworld of loopholes. Nevertheless, issued by the world’s highest court, the advisory opinions carry authority, legitimacy, and legal weight.
The July 23, 2025, advisory opinion on “The Obligations of States in Respect to Climate Change” resolved the largest case ever put before the ICJ. The court heard from more than 100 countries and organizations that submitted written statements and issued an advisory specifying the obligations of states regarding climate change.
The answers came bold, clear: “[I]nternational law requires states to prevent significant harm to the climate—and failure to do so can trigger legal responsibility,” stated the International Institute of Sustainable Development. This opinion received unanimous support from all 14 judges. This was powerful; it has happened only five times since the court’s founding in 1945.
In remarks before sharing the opinion, ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa emphasized that the climate questions raised “represent more than a legal problem. … They concern an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperil all forms of life and the very health of our planet,” stated the Hill.
The answers given in the court’s advisory opinion open a path toward climate justice and accountability. Some key points are as follows:
- Nations have climate obligations that are not a matter of choice. Instead, they are legal, substantive, and enforceable. These duties extend to all states.
- The advisory opinion conveys a strict due diligence standard. This includes having effective national climate plans that meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold, supporting vulnerable nations, and regulating private actors. Failure to act may constitute an internationally wrongful act—triggering legal consequences. This can lead to paying reparations for the harms of climate change.
- Small frontline communities that cause very little harm to the environment often endure the most severe climate breakdowns created by other top-polluting countries. For the first time, they now have remedies available. The era of climate impunity is over.
The court held that a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of many human rights, such as the right to life; the right to health; and the right to an adequate standard of living, including access to clean water, food, and housing.
The ICJ advisory opinion on climate will serve as a guiding document. It will be analyzed, interpreted, and cited in courts of law for years to come. For some advocates, it may be as significant as the Magna Carta in environmental law, whereas for others, it is at minimum a foundational text.
Most importantly, however, it will assist people to see that we need to collaborate and act. Climate systems do not know or care about man-made borders, political agendas, or national economies. They run and currently destroy on a planetary, transboundary scale. It is absurd for nations attempting to stand alone to face this. And pretending to withdraw from it, or from the ICJ, happens to be pointless as well. No nation is exempt from calamity. As long as it is taking place on this planet, there is inherent participation—willingly or not. We need to work together toward restoring a beautiful, thriving Earth while there is still time.
