State Responsibility And Climate Change: Evaluating The Role Of The International Court Of Justice In Global Climate Accountability
- IJLLR Journal
- 15 hours ago
- 2 min read
Ankush, Lovely Professional University, Punjab
ABSTRACT
Climate change has become one of the most urgent issues of concern to the international legal order that puts fundamental questions about whether states are responsible to cause transboundary environmental harm. The implementation of climate commitments by the various global environmental agreements is still incomplete and almost fruitless despite the presence of various international environmental agreements. This essay also looks into the suitability of the doctrine of state responsibility to climate change, and more specifically the changing role of International Court of Justice in global climate responsibility. The paper adopts a prescriptive and theoretical approach and, to assess the scope of its application in climate- related damage, determines the applicability of current principles of international law, specifically the principles proposed by the International Law Commission. It also examines the groundbreaking 2025 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the duty of states regarding the climate change, which made it clear that states have legal obligations under the treaty law and customary international law to mitigate excessive environmental damages, control greenhouse gases and work together to help in dealing with risks posed by climate changes. It is contended in the paper that the conventional concept of state responsibility is especially challenged in the scenario of climate context, especially on the notions of causation, attribution, and shared responsibility, but the advisory opinion of the ICJ is an essential normative development. Even though not legally binding, it bolsters the status of climate commitments as legal entities and certifies that violations can be the source of international wrongful acts that have legal outcomes, such as termination and compensation. The paper concludes that the International Court of Justice, in spite of its institutional drawbacks, can be paramount in illuminating a standard of the law and reinforcing the normative infrastructures of worldwide climate responsibility, which could lead to the progressive advancement of international legislation as it tackles the climate crisis.
