This ruling affirms what our communities have long been saying: the climate crisis is a human rights emergency, and States have urgent legal obligations to act, be held accountable, and provide reparations for harm done.
We highlight the following key elements of the Court’s groundbreaking opinion:
- The duty to prevent irreversible harm to the climate and environment has been recognized as jus cogens—a peremptory norm of international law from which no derogation is permitted.
- The Court affirmed that its interpretation applies not only under the American Convention, but also under the American Declaration, directly impacting States such as the United States and Canada.
- An intersectional approach was applied to the protection of human rights defenders, acknowledging the particular risks faced by Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities, women, and youth.
- The Court invoked intergenerational equity and welcomed the framework of the rights of nature, emphasizing the need for a just and sustainable transition.
- States were found to have a duty to cooperate in addressing loss and damage and to ensure access to justice and reparations.
- The Court also affirmed States’ duty to prevent the undue influence of businesses over climate policy, referencing direct language advanced by civil society.
This Advisory Opinion—requested by Colombia and Chile—was shaped by an unprecedented level of participation from Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities, social movements, youth, and civil society organizations. More than 260 submissions were made, including two from ESCR-Net with several of our members.
“This ruling sets a minimum threshold for climate action. States are now required not only to act but to do so with ambition, justice, and accountability. This is a powerful tool for communities to demand justice, participation, and reparations,” said Adrián Martínez, of La Ruta del Clima, an ESCR-Net member in Costa Rica.
“The Court has broken new ground and set a powerful precedent: climate destruction is a violation of human rights. Big polluters can no longer hide behind State inaction,” said Nikki Reisch, from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), also an ESCR-Net member.
“Environmental defense is a right in itself and a pillar of democracy. Protecting environmental defenders is no longer optional—it is a binding legal obligation,” added Luisa Gómez Betancur, senior attorney at CIEL.
“The Inter-American Court’s Advisory Opinion must be followed by firm action from States—especially those most powerful and historically responsible for the climate crisis—to abandon extractivist logics that treat territories, water, minerals, and forests as mere commodities,” said Martha Grisales, from the Environmental Committee for the Defense of Life in Colombia. “As a community organization, we reaffirm our conviction that energy transition and climate action must not reproduce past injustices and inequalities, but instead place human dignity and the autonomy of peoples at the center.”
The decision was also strongly welcomed by several United Nations Special Rapporteurs, who emphasized both its legal significance and political impact in centering human rights within climate action. Elisa Morgera, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change; Astrid Puentes Riaño, Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment; Marcos A. Orellana, Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes; and Surya Deva, Special Rapporteur on the right to development, all praised the Court’s recognition of the climate emergency as an existential threat to humanity, with direct consequences for the rights of both present and future generations.
They stressed that the Advisory Opinion sets a new global standard by affirming that the obligation to prevent irreversible and massive harm to the climate system is a peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens). The Opinion provides a comprehensive and integrated view of the human rights harms arising from the climate crisis—particularly those linked to poverty, discrimination, and systemic inequality. The Special Rapporteurs also welcomed the reaffirmation of the autonomy of the right to a healthy environment, including its core elements and the explicit recognition of a healthy climate as a distinct and fundamental right. Finally, they celebrated the unprecedented participatory process that shaped the Opinion—one of the most inclusive in the history of any international tribunal—as a model for global climate justice.
This decision not only strengthens international legal frameworks but also affirms the legitimacy of frontline struggles. It compels States to act with urgency, coherence, and responsibility—and sends a clear message to corporations: climate impunity must end.
ESCR-Net calls on States to immediately implement the obligations laid out in this Advisory Opinion, and on national and international courts to use it as a legal foundation to advance climate justice across the globe.
Without climate justice, there can be no human rights. And without environmental defenders, there is no future.
