Ethics on Earth©

On July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark advisory opinion. It declared that all States are legally obligated to protect the global climate system. In its unanimous ruling, the ICJ confirmed that international law requires States to take action against climate change. This obligation arises from a web of environmental treaties, customary norms, and human rights frameworks. It is not a matter of political will, but a binding legal duty.

This moment marks a profound convergence of law, ethics, and intergenerational responsibility. It is also a decisive affirmation of the voices of youth and climate-vulnerable nations. These groups brought this case forward. This is especially true for small island developing states and Pacific youth coalitions.

Law as an Ethical Instrument

The ICJ’s opinion highlights a crucial recognition. Environmental degradation is not merely an ecological crisis. It is an ethical failure with legal consequences. The Court affirmed that environmental harm can violate human rights. This is especially true for harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Such violations include the rights to life, health, food, water, housing, and culture. These rights are inseparable from a healthy environment.

The opinion further articulates that failure to meet climate obligations may be classified as an internationally wrongful act. This opens the door to state responsibility. It also suggests the possibility of reparations and even restitution. Such measures deepen the legal accountability of governments. By extension, they also affect corporations acting under their authority.

The ICJ’s advisory opinion includes a powerful and far-reaching element. It recognizes that protecting the climate system is not just about bilateral treaties. It is also not simply about voluntary commitments. Instead, it is a duty erga omnes: a responsibility owed by all States to the international community as a whole.

This framing is legally significant and ethically transformative. A duty erga omnes elevates climate protection to the level of fundamental obligations. These include the prohibition of genocide, slavery, and racial discrimination. These norms are so fundamental they concern every State, every people, and every generation. It affirms that climate change is not only a threat to the environment. It is also a threat to global justice and the shared foundations of human dignity.

The Court further emphasized that this obligation extends not just to current populations, but explicitly to future generations. This recognition enshrines the principle of intergenerational justice into the legal reasoning of the international community’s highest court. Future generations, though voiceless in today’s political processes, are granted a form of moral and legal standing. Their right to a livable planet includes clean air and a stable climate. Thriving ecosystems are also essential. This is no longer a speculative ethical concern. It is a legal imperative.

From an ethical standpoint, this represents a radical expansion of our moral community across time. It challenges the prevailing logic of “short-termism” and profit maximization that has driven ecological destruction. It insists that we must consider the well-being of future people in every policy. These are the individuals who will inherit today’s emissions and their atmospheric consequences. Every investment and act of governance must account for them. As philosopher Hans Jonas argued in The Imperative of Responsibility, we need to act now. The permanence of genuine human life on Earth depends on our choices. This is because it truly does.

The ICJ framed climate obligations as erga omnes. This decision has strengthened the moral claims of the most vulnerable to climate impacts. It has also bolstered legal claims for small island developing states, indigenous communities, and youth advocates. These actors are no longer appealing to the conscience of the international system. They are invoking binding responsibilities that are grounded in law. These responsibilities are also backed by principle. The Court’s affirmation reinforces the legitimacy of their demands for adaptation support. It validates calls for loss and damage mechanisms. The affirmation insists on stopping harm caused by historic and ongoing emissions.

For decades, global climate negotiations have revolved around the notion of shared but differentiated responsibilities. While this principle has acknowledged historical inequalities, it has recognized differing capacities among states. However, it has often allowed for ambiguous interpretations and delayed action. What the ICJ’s opinion does is move the discourse decisively from responsibility to accountability, from abstract duties to concrete consequences.

In legal terms, the Court’s advisory opinion confirms that failing to uphold climate obligations may be an internationally wrongful act. This is not mere symbolic language. Under international law, such acts entail consequences: states must cease the harmful conduct, guarantee non-repetition, and make full reparation. This may include restitution, compensation for climate-related harm, or other forms of satisfaction. The implication is clear. States cannot act with impunity any longer. Their actions or inactions that cause ecological and human harm will face consequences.

The ICJ’s actions are particularly notable. The Court widened the scope of state accountability to include private actors under state jurisdiction and control. This includes fossil fuel companies and agribusinesses. Energy utilities, financial institutions, and other entities are also included. Their emissions or environmental impacts are enabled by state laws, licenses, subsidies, or omissions. The Court affirms a principle long advocated by climate justice movements. Governments have ethical and legal responsibilities. They cannot outsource these responsibilities to corporate actors.

This shift from responsibility to accountability carries a strong ethical dimension. Moral obligation becomes enforceable duty. Negligence becomes a breach. And harm becomes a matter not only of guilt but of reparation and justice. The opinion thus sets the stage for legal pathways to address historical emissions. It also highlights the disproportionate impacts on vulnerable nations. Additionally, it points out the structural inequalities embedded in the global climate regime.

Ethically, accountability means more than legal liability. It means being answerable not only for what we do, but for what we allow, ignore, or fail to prevent. It challenges the comfortable distance that often separates decision-makers from the victims of environmental degradation. It brings into focus the real human cost of delayed action. Lives are lost to floods and droughts. Homes are submerged under rising seas. Cultures and ecosystems are pushed to the brink.

The ICJ opinion therefore signals a new era of climate governance. In this era, the voices of affected communities, civil society, and future generations gain legal standing. States are no longer shielded by vague commitments or voluntary frameworks. Instead, states must align their laws, institutions, and policies with the demands of climate justice. If they fail to do so, they will face legal, moral, and political consequences.

An Invitation to Ethical Action

“The catastrophe has already happened; it is called modernity.” Bruno Latour, Facing Gaia (2017)

The ICJ’s advisory opinion is not legally binding in the same way as a court judgment between states. However, it carries immense normative and moral weight. The ICJ is the highest judicial body of the United Nations. It has offered a clear interpretation. Protecting the climate is not simply a policy choice. It is a legal and ethical imperative.

This moment invites far more than procedural compliance; it calls for ethical transformation. Climate breakdown is not just a failure of international governance. It is the symptom of a deeper moral crisis. This crisis is rooted in short-term thinking, techno-economic domination, and a rupture between humans and the Earth.

Philosopher Hans Jonas foresaw this in his seminal work The Imperative of Responsibility (1979). He warned that technological power had outstripped traditional ethical frameworks. For Jonas, a new ethics must begin with a “heuristics of fear”. It prompts us to imagine the worst, not to paralyze action. Instead, it aims to sharpen our sense of responsibility toward the most vulnerable and those yet to be born. His formulation resonates deeply with the ICJ’s affirmation of duties toward future generations. He advises us to act. Our actions must ensure that their effects are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life on Earth.

In parallel, Bruno Latour offers a different but equally urgent philosophical insight. Latour discusses this in works like Down to Earth (2018) and Facing Gaia (2017). He argues that we should abandon the illusion of mastery over a passive environment. He argues that this illusion is misleading. He believes this view is misguided. Instead, we are enmeshed in a network of entanglements, where the Earth itself is a political actor. The ICJ’s opinion affirms the duty to protect the climate as erga omnes. This echoes Latour’s call for a “terrestrial politics”. It marks a shift from global abstraction to grounded responsibility.

The Court’s recognition of intergenerational justice signifies a need to rethink our concepts of obligation. It highlights state accountability. This also emphasizes rights for future peoples. It also calls for reconsidering time and care. It is no longer enough to protect the interests of current constituents. We must act in defense of those who cannot yet speak. We also need to protect life forms that will never vote.

This requires what Jonas described as an ethics of foresight, guided by caution, humility, and reverence for life. In Latour’s terms, it also demands a cosmopolitics. This means including non-human actors, like oceans, forests, rivers, atmosphere, within our moral and political deliberations.

Ultimately, the ICJ has laid the legal foundation. The ethical edifice must now be built. That task belongs to all of us, as citizens, educators, jurists, artists, and scientists. We dare to imagine a future not built on extraction. Instead, it’s based on solidarity with the Earth. In the words of Jonas, this is “an ethics for the future that is not yet.” It is an ethics that must not be lost.

Key Takeaways from the ICJ Climate Advisory Opinion

Ethical Call to Action
The opinion draws on philosophers like Hans Jonas and Bruno Latour. It invites a deeper ethics of responsibility. It emphasizes humility and planetary care. The focus is shifting from voluntary commitments to enforceable, intergenerational duty.

Climate Protection is a Legal Obligation
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) confirmed that all States are legally bound. This obligation is under international law. These obligations arise through treaties, customary norms, and human rights frameworks. States must protect the global climate system.

Climate Justice is a Universal Duty (Erga Omnes)
The obligation to act on climate change is owed to the international community. This duty is to the international community as a whole. It also extends to future generations. This affirms the principle of intergenerational justice.

Accountability for Climate Harm
States that fail to meet their climate obligations may be committing an internationally wrongful act. They are required to cease harmful behavior, prevent recurrence, and provide reparations. These reparations include compensation and restitution.

States are Responsible for Private Actors
Governments are also accountable for emissions caused by entities under their jurisdiction. This includes fossil fuel companies and industries they regulate, subsidize, or license.

Human Rights and Environmental Protection are Interlinked
A healthy environment is a condition for realizing fundamental human rights (e.g., to life, health, water, housing). Climate inaction can amount to a violation of these rights.

Small Island States and Youth Movements Gain Legal Support
The ICJ upheld the statehood and legal standing of climate-vulnerable nations, even if their land is submerged. The ICJ recognized the claims of youth and future generations as legally and morally legitimate.

References:

Latour, B. (2018). Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime. Polity Press.

Jonas, H. (1984). The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age. University of Chicago Press.

Latour, B. (2017). Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime. Polity Press.

Read the ICJ summary:
https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/187/187-20250723-sum-01-00-en.pdf

Acknowledgment: This article honors the work of youth advocates, small island nations, and the broader climate justice movement. Their determination made this historic moment possible.