Corporate Climate Accountability Under Public International Law
- IJLLR Journal
- 6 days ago
- 1 min read
Ambika Aggarwal, North Cap University
ABSTRACT
Public International law was designed by and for sovereign states. Corporations, including the small cluster of investor-owned entities responsible for a disproportionate share of historical greenhouse gas emissions, have traditionally occupied the status of objects rather than subjects of that legal order, and therefore bear no direct legal obligations under instruments such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or the Paris Agreement. Yet the last 3 years have witnessed an unprecedented consolidation of international climate law, through the advisory opinions of the international tribunal for law of the sea, the Inter- Americal courts for Human rights and the International Court of Justice, alongside domestic litigation that import these international standards into private law duties of care owned by corporations. This paper examines whether and how public international law can be said to hold corporations accountable for their contribution to climate change. It argues that although direct corporate obligations under international law remain doctrinally elusive because corporations lack international legal personality, an increasingly dense web of indirect pathways, comprising state due-diligence obligations, the customary no-harm principle, soft law instruments such as the UN Guiding principles on Business and Human rights and their domestic judicial application is closing the accountability gap in substance of not in form. The paper concludes with key recommendations for consolidating the emerging regime.
Keywords: Corporate accountability, Paris Agreement, ICJ Advisory opinion, Corporate duty of care, Climate change.
