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The International Court of Justice (ICJ) handles climate-change advisory requests by answering legal questions put to it by the United Nations—not by deciding a damages case against a particular country. On 23 July 2025, it unanimously issued its advisory opinion in Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change. The Court identified duties under climate treaties, customary international law, other environmental treaties, the law of the sea and human-rights law. It also explained that a breach can entail State responsibility and, where legal conditions are met, remedies. It did not find any named State liable.
The opinion responds to a General Assembly request for guidance on what international law requires of States to protect the climate system from human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions, and what legal consequences may follow if States cause significant harm. Its central significance is that the Court treated climate protection as a question spanning several parts of international law, rather than one confined to the Paris Agreement.
What kind of proceeding was the climate opinion?
It was an advisory proceeding, not a contentious case in which one State accused another and asked the Court to rule on its responsibility. The United Nations General Assembly asked the ICJ to provide legal guidance on two questions: what obligations States have to protect the climate system and environment from anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, for present and future generations; and what legal consequences may arise when State conduct causes significant harm, including harm to especially affected or vulnerable States and people.
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The distinction matters. The Court was asked to state the applicable legal framework in general terms. It was not asked to assess a particular State’s policies, determine whether a named country had breached an obligation, or calculate compensation for a particular injury. The opinion therefore supplies a framework that can inform later legal and policy discussions, but it is not an order imposing liability on a specific government.
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The General Assembly adopted resolution 77/276 on 29 March 2023, and the Secretary-General transmitted the request to the Court on 12 April 2023. The Court concluded unanimously that the questions were legal, that it had jurisdiction to answer them, and that there was no compelling reason to decline the request. The signed ICJ advisory opinion is the authoritative source for those conclusions and the legal propositions discussed below.
How did the ICJ process the request?
The Court considered written submissions, then held public hearings before deliberating and issuing its opinion. The scale of participation shows how many States and organizations engaged with the request; it does not mean that every participant endorsed every conclusion in the final opinion.
- Written phase: States and international organizations filed 91 written statements and 62 written comments, according to the ICJ’s 2025 release.
- Public hearings: From 2 to 13 December 2024, 96 States and 11 international organizations presented oral statements.
- Opinion: The Court delivered its opinion on 23 July 2025 and adopted it unanimously. The ICJ described it in its release as only the fifth unanimous opinion in the Court’s nearly eighty-year history at that time.
The ICJ’s 2025 press release reports the participation figures and the Court’s characterization of unanimity. Those figures are procedural context—not a poll of States’ views on the legal conclusions. The Court also issued a summary of its advisory opinion; the full opinion contains the formal reasoning and operative conclusions.
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What obligations did the Court identify?
The Court identified obligations from several sources of international law. Which duties apply to a State depends in part on the treaties it has joined, but the Court also identified customary international-law duties that are not simply provisions of the Paris Agreement.
Climate treaties: mitigation, adaptation and cooperation
The Court said that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement establish binding obligations for their respective States parties. Among its conclusions, the Court said UNFCCC parties must adopt measures that contribute to mitigation and adaptation. Annex I parties have additional leadership obligations under the climate regime.
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For Paris Agreement parties, the Court identified duties to exercise due diligence, prepare and maintain successive and progressive nationally determined contributions (NDCs), pursue measures capable of achieving the objectives in their own NDCs, and cooperate in good faith on adaptation and related support. NDCs are the national climate contributions States submit under the Agreement. They are not interchangeable with the Agreement’s temperature goal: a State’s own contribution is assessed in the context of the collective goal and its legal obligations.
The Court’s operative conclusion says the NDCs of Paris Agreement parties, taken together, must be capable of achieving the Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. It did not prescribe one identical NDC for every country. The diligence assessment takes account of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, as well as relevant circumstances of the State concerned. That means the Court articulated a shared legal framework while recognizing that the required conduct is assessed in context.
Customary international law: preventing significant harm
The Court found a customary duty to prevent significant environmental harm, which applies to the climate system, as well as a customary duty to cooperate in good faith. Under the prevention duty, States must use all means at their disposal to prevent activities within their jurisdiction or control from causing significant harm. The duty is one of conduct: the question is whether the State took the required care in the circumstances, not whether every harmful outcome can be prevented.
The Court characterized climate-related due diligence as stringent. In evaluating what diligence requires, it discussed matters including appropriate regulation and enforcement, the best available science, risk assessment, a State’s capacity and circumstances, and good-faith notification and consultation where planned activities present relevant risks. The standard is demanding, but it does not assume that every State has the same capabilities, emissions history or factual responsibility. A specific assessment would have to examine the conduct and circumstances at issue.
Other environmental, maritime and human-rights law
The Court did not treat climate obligations as belonging to a sealed-off legal category. It identified relevant obligations under other environmental treaties, including the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, the Montreal Protocol and its Kigali Amendment, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Convention to Combat Desertification.
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It also concluded that parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) must protect and preserve the marine environment, including against adverse effects of climate change, and must cooperate in good faith. In human-rights law, the Court concluded that States have obligations to respect and ensure the effective enjoyment of rights by taking necessary measures to protect the climate system and other parts of the environment.
These strands are important because they prevent an overly narrow reading of the opinion. The Paris Agreement is central to the climate-treaty analysis, but it is not the only source of relevant duties. Treaty obligations apply according to the relevant treaty rules, while customary international law provides a separate legal basis for the duties the Court identified.
What does due diligence require in practice?
Due diligence is a demanding standard of conduct, not an automatic guarantee that a State will achieve a particular climate outcome. The Court’s analysis points to a practical chain of responsibility: assess risks using the best available science; adopt appropriate laws and regulatory measures; enforce them; and cooperate, including through notification or consultation where relevant risks from planned activities arise.
The standard is contextual. State capacity and circumstances, along with common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities where relevant, inform what measures are required. Context does not erase the obligation to act; it shapes the assessment of whether a State used the means available to it with the requisite care. The opinion’s emphasis on stringent diligence also means that simply having a climate policy on paper would not, by itself, answer every legal question. The conduct and measures must be assessed against the applicable obligation and facts.
For Paris Agreement parties, the Court’s conclusions connect planning and implementation. States must prepare and maintain successive, progressive NDCs, and they must pursue measures capable of achieving their own NDC objectives. The collective NDCs must be capable of meeting the 1.5°C temperature goal. These are related but distinct inquiries: whether a State has fulfilled its procedural and conduct duties, and whether the aggregate contributions meet the treaty’s temperature objective.
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What can happen if a State breaches an obligation?
The Court unanimously concluded that a breach of any obligation identified in answer to the General Assembly’s first question constitutes an internationally wrongful act entailing the responsibility of the State concerned. It also said that a responsible State remains under a continuing duty to perform the obligation it breached.
Depending on the circumstances and the applicable rules of State responsibility, consequences may include:
- Cessation: stopping conduct that is continuing and wrongful.
- Assurances or guarantees of non-repetition: measures directed at preventing a recurrence, where appropriate.
- Full reparation: potentially through restitution, compensation or satisfaction, subject to the general rules governing State responsibility.
These are possible legal consequences, not an automatic damages award attached to the advisory opinion. Reparation requires a case-specific assessment, including proof of a sufficiently direct and certain causal nexus between the wrongful act and the injury claimed. The Court did not identify a responsible State, find that a particular breach had occurred, or decide any particular compensation claim. The operative conclusion appears in paragraph 457 of the full opinion.
The position of individuals also requires care. The opinion does not establish that every person can bring a direct claim before the ICJ or automatically obtain compensation from a State. Whether an individual may invoke State responsibility depends on applicable treaties and other instruments that provide relevant substantive or procedural rights.
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The opinion’s reach is broad in its account of applicable law, but it is not a ruling on a particular country’s liability. It answers the General Assembly’s legal questions at a general level. A later case or claim would still need to identify the relevant obligation, establish the conduct and circumstances, address whether a breach occurred, and—if reparation is sought—meet the applicable requirements of causation and injury.
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Nor should unanimity be read as proof that every participating State agreed with every argument or proposition. The Court’s operative conclusions were unanimous, while the opinion also includes separate opinions and declarations. Those individual judicial writings can express additional reasoning or emphasis; they should not be confused with the Court’s formal conclusions.
For documentary viewers following the case, the simplest way to understand the result is as a legal map: the Court identified multiple obligations, explained how demanding standards such as due diligence apply to climate protection, and outlined consequences that may follow a proven breach. Turning that map into a judgment about a particular State would require a separate, fact-specific legal process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did all the States that took part in the hearings support the opinion?
No conclusion about participants’ individual positions follows from the participation totals. The figures record who filed submissions or presented oral statements; the Court’s unanimous adoption describes the Court’s decision, not a vote by the States and organizations that took part.
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Does the 1.5°C goal mean every country must submit the same emissions target?
No. The Court did not prescribe an identical NDC for every State. It said the NDCs of Paris Agreement parties, considered together, must be capable of achieving the Agreement’s temperature goal, while each State’s diligence is assessed with relevant responsibilities, capabilities and circumstances in view.
Why did the General Assembly include future generations in its question?
The request framed climate protection as an obligation concerning both present and future generations. That framing helps explain why the Court addressed the protection of the climate system over time, rather than treating the issue solely as a dispute about a past event.
Are separate opinions the same as a dissent from the Court’s result?
Not necessarily. The opinion includes separate opinions and declarations, which are individual judicial writings; the Court’s operative conclusions were adopted unanimously. Those writings should be distinguished from the formal conclusions issued by the Court as a whole.
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