International Legal Obligations on Climate & Rights

Laws, policies, and actions related to climate change mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage must respect and protect human rights. This includes both the effects of their actions and the failure to act, since the failure to act will lead to a foreseeable loss of human rights.

On July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on the obligations of states with respect to climate change in which it made clear that states have legally binding obligations to protect people from foreseeable harms to their human rights due to climate change. The court stated:

In order to guarantee the effective enjoyment of human rights, States must take measures to protect the climate system and other parts of the environment. These measures may include, inter alia, taking mitigation and adaptation measures, with due account given to the protection of human rights, the adoption of standards and legislation, and the regulation of the activities of private actors. Under international human rights law, States are required to take necessary measures in this regard.

Similarly, in its 2025 advisory opinion on obligations of states with respect to the climate crisis the Inter-American Court of Human Rights stated that:

States are obligated to guarantee human rights when they are, or should be, aware of the possibility that the acts or omissions of their agents or of private individuals may create a risk of severe and irreversible damage, within or outside their territory, even when they lack absolute certainty in this regard.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has similarly noted:

States must comply with their international obligations to protect and guarantee the enjoyment and exercise of human rights by all persons who, as a result of environmental impacts, including those attributable to climate change, are significantly affected both individually and collectively.

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) has warned that “a failure to prevent foreseeable human rights harms caused by climate change, or a failure to mobilize the maximum available resources in an effort to do so, could constitute a breach” of their human rights obligations.

Countries thus have a legal obligation to adopt and implement legal frameworks to protect against environmental harm—through both mitigation and adaptation—that will threaten or violate human rights, including the rights to life, food, health, housing, water, and a healthy environment. In doing so they must also regulate private actors, including but not limited to businesses, to protect against such environmental harm.

The parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) have guaranteed that the rights to food, housing, and health will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status. The parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) similarly have committed to ensure to all individuals within their territory and subject to their jurisdiction their right to life, without distinction of any kind.