Historic court ruling says countries legally bound to prevent climate harm

The world’s top court has issued a landmark advisory opinion saying that countries are legally obligated to protect the environment and present and future generations from the impacts of climate change. This obligation, the U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) said on July 23, is grounded in existing environmental and human rights treaties. It also said states that fail to prevent climate harm and continue to support the use of fossil fuels may open themselves to future legal cases for reparations by vulnerable nations. “If states have legal duties to prevent climate harm, then victims of that harm have a right to redress,” Sebastien Duyck, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said in an emailed statement. “In this way, the ICJ advisory opinion d