He Who Laughs Last Laughs Best? A Contemporary Crusade on Public Interest, Climate Change and the Request of the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ

Abstract

Climate change presents a significant challenge for both the international community and international law, constituting a clear public interest. In particular, the ICJ has been requested to provide an advisory opinion on the obligations related to climate change and the ramifications of their breach, considering not only interactions between states but also the rights and interests of peoples and individuals from both present and future generations. The ICJ is anticipated to be the last to deliver its advisory opinion, after the rulings of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This paper is not envisioned as a predictor of the Court’s potential pronouncements, but rather as a discussion on the issues the Court should relate, considering the current advances in public-interest international litigation and the anticipation of future contentious cases before the Court. As climate change obligations arise from merging environmental and human rights rules into an evolving legal realm, their occasionally oppositional dynamics should be central to the deliberations on substantive obligations. Concurrently, distinctive procedural challenges may loom contingent on how the Court addresses the substantive rules and obligations of states concerning climate change. This paper concludes with a reflection on the necessity for a bold Court, although with a prudent approach to the potentially extensive implications of public interest litigation.