Right to Life in the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Climate Change

The ICJ Advisory Opinion of 23 July 2025 on states’ obligations in respect of local weather change is, for a lot of causes, pathbreaking. A few of such options pertain to worldwide human rights regulation. Ramindo Perera mentioned one facet, the ICJ’s recognition of the precise to a clear and wholesome surroundings as a ‘new’ human proper. Right here, I’m searching for to focus on an vital contribution made by the ICJ in relation to a ‘traditional’ human proper, specifically the precise to life.

One small paragraph within the Advisory Opinion reads:

The Courtroom considers that circumstances ensuing from local weather change that are prone to endanger the lives of people might cause them to search security out of the country or stop them from returning to their very own. Within the view of the Courtroom, States have obligations beneath the precept of non-refoulement the place there are substantial grounds for believing that there’s a actual danger of irreparable hurt to the precise to life in breach of Article 6 of the ICCPR if people are returned to their nation of origin (see Human Rights Committee, Teitiota v. New Zealand, 24 October 2019, UN doc. CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016, para. 9.11).

We are able to count on this paragraph to be quoted earlier than home courts and tribunals, regional human rights courts and UN human rights treaty our bodies, different worldwide judicial or quasi-judicial establishments, and naturally in educational and political discourse. Problems with non-refoulement and other people fleeing local weather change are main themes in human rights debates and litigation, and might be much more so in years and many years to return, sadly with accelerating tempo. If what the ICJ stated might be taken, because it ought to, as an authoritative pronouncement in regards to the standing of worldwide regulation and states’ obligations beneath it, then paragraph 378 alone might be a game-changer.

Allow us to do not forget that in Teitiota, cited by the ICJ, the reply given by the Human Rights Committee beneath Article 6 of the ICCPR was: ‘not but’. The complainant, Ioane Teitiota had been denied refugee standing in New Zealand and was deported again to Kiribati the place the preconditions of human society have been threatened by sea stage rise. In a submission of December 2016, he asserted that Kiribati was dropping land mass and ‘might be anticipated to outlive as a rustic for 10 to fifteen extra years’ (para. 7.2). This phrase was picked up by the Human Rights Committee which accepted the complainant’s declare that sea stage rise was prone to render Kiribati uninhabitable, however then continued: ‘Nonetheless, it notes that the timeframe of 10 to fifteen years, as recommended by the writer, may permit for intervening acts by Kiribati, with the help of the worldwide group, to take affirmative measures to guard and, the place obligatory, relocate its inhabitants.’ Therefore, there had been no violation of ICCPR Article 6 – as of October 2019 when the case was determined.

Since Teitiota, the reference to ’10 to fifteen years’ has turn into a mantra repeated in lots of subsequent selections or debates, together with by the Human Rights Committee itself in Billy (para. 8.7), one other landmark case on human rights and local weather change, additionally cited by the ICJ.

Notably, there is no such thing as a reference to ’10 to fifteen years’ or the ‘not but’ assumption within the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion. As a substitute, paragraph 378 is written within the current tense: ‘… States have obligations beneath the precept of non-refoulement…’ (emphasis added). The rationale for dropping the ‘not but’ phrase is easy: virtually ten years have very quickly handed since Teitiota’s counsel introduced the argument in December 2016 (see, additionally, para. 16 of my Knowledgeable Report, submitted by Vanuatu to the ICJ). Whereas the ICJ, after all, didn’t tackle the factual state of affairs in Kiribati or every other territory confronted with sea-level rise, it established a normal for a state obligation of non-refoulement when ‘there are substantial grounds for believing that there’s a actual danger of irreparable hurt to the precise to life’ in an individual’s nation of origin due to local weather change.

One other outstanding facet of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion is that the reference to non-refoulement is made instantly beneath worldwide human rights regulation and ICCPR Article 6, with no reference to the Refugee Conference or its caveats and delimitations. The phrase ‘refugee’ doesn’t even seem within the Opinion. There needn’t be a dialogue on whether or not individuals fleeing local weather change are ‘refugees’, because the state obligation of non-refoulement is triggered by their fatherland having turn into unsuitable for human life.

Let’s face it: The ICJ has affirmed the phenomenon also known as ‘local weather refugees’ as a factual state of affairs that triggers a state obligation of non-refoulement as a authorized consequence beneath ICCPR Article 6 and public worldwide regulation. The scope of that obligation, nonetheless, was not decided by the ICJ. In a potential timeframe of some many years, a whole lot of tens of millions of individuals could also be entitled to safety beneath the precept of non-refoulement in the event that they bodily make it into the jurisdiction of one other state. There might be two main factual challenges: to achieve the jurisdiction of one other state, and to reveal that there are substantial grounds for believing that there’s a actual danger of irreparable hurt to the precise to life in a single’s fatherland. What involves the regulation, the ICJ Opinion might be relied upon as authority. Scope will however stay for debate on what counts as such irreparable hurt, as an example in respect of the notion of ‘life with dignity’ flagged by the Human Rights Committee in its Normal Remark No. 36 (para. 3, as in comparison with para. 30).

Those that assume that migration by and resettlement of a whole lot of tens of millions of individuals fleeing local weather change is ‘unrealistic’ must ask what, then, is ‘practical’: not an unprecedented massacre on the coasts and different borders of potential receiving states, however a worldwide dedication, mobilisation and funding in local weather change mitigation and adaptation. Deliberate resettlement schemes, such because the one agreed between Australia and Tuvalu, might be one a part of the package deal. Pressing and big measures to mitigate and cease GHG emissions, in order to offer part of the individuals threatened by local weather change a risk to remain the place they’re, is one other. And serving to peoples, communities and people to adapt their lives, livelihoods and cultures to the brand new realities of local weather change is a 3rd one, and of explicit relevance to indigenous peoples or equally located communities whose tradition is so intimately tied to a particular geographical location that relocation might be a measure of final resort and all the things attainable must be made to allow them to stay a life with dignity on their conventional lands. Right here, the Billy case stays extremely instructive.