ICJ: A clarifying lens, not handcuffs
Several Parties are feeling nervous this week. Turns out, clarifying your legal obligations is uncomfortable when you’ve been ignoring them. ECO heard parties insist that the UNFCCC is a space for collaboration, not litigation. ECO agrees. Which is exactly why the International Court of Justice (ICJ) fits in perfectly. The ICJ clarifies what collaboration requires, so you can avoid litigation. The advisory opinion doesn’t create new rules. It simply reads aloud the ones states already signed.
You might have forgotten (because it’s happening all behind closed doors) but we’re reviewing the WIM this year! And look who showed up with receipts: its the ICJ Advisory Opinion, delivering long overdue legal clarity on state obligations on climate change, including on Loss & Damage.
ECO is glad to see some parties actively using this clarity in the negotiations. But seeing some Parties staying silent (developed, do you need coffee?) or worse, pushing back, raises the question: why ask the world’s highest court for advice if you were not intending to follow it? Spoiler alert: Ignoring or resisting binding law doesn’t make it unbind.
Missed the memo? No worries, ECO took notes for you. So sit back, listen up, and most importantly, pay up your fair share for L&D finance.
1. 1.5°C is the legal limit. L&D escalates with every fraction of warming. → Party assignment: Back to the drawing board with your NDCs. Phase out fossil fuels and show your work.
2. States must provide resources at the scale of L&D needs, based on CBDR-RC. → Party assignment: Hundreds of billions annually in public, grant-based funding. Not millions. We can tell the difference. → Bonus assignment: Mandate a Loss and Damage Gap Report so we can all see the homework you’re not doing.
3. Frontline communities have a right to full reparation. Those who breach obligations must repair harm. → Party assignment: Recognize that the UNFCCC L&D landscape is not fit for purpose. Respond accordingly.
Losses and damages are human rights violations and those who cause them must be held accountable through remedial action, non-repetition, and crucially, through reparation. There is no process loophole or decision footnote that erases these duties. So if this process isn’t about upholding international climate law, care to explain ECO what it’s for?
Feeling overwhelmed, wealthy high-emitting states? The ICJ thought of that too. You’re responsible for holding private corporations accountable for their climate destruction. Regulating and taxing big polluters can help pay your L&D bill. Who knew accountability could also solve your budget problems? Class dismissed. Now let’s get to work.
