THE POSSIBLE IMPACTS OF INTERNATIONAL COURTS' ADVISORY OPINIONS ON THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

Abstract

In the last year or so, requests for advisory opinions related to the rights and obligations of states in the context of climate change were submitted to two international and one regional court. Focusing on the requests made to the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the present paper aims to critically assess whether submitting requests for advisory opinions was justified. On the one hand, an appropriateness of advisory opinion as a means of defining states' rights and obligations related to climate protection will be examined. On the other hand, the possible impact of these opinions on states’ behavior will be analyzed. It is the conclusion of the paper that, in spite of discussing various reasons throughout the paper, it can hardly be expected that the opinions themselves will in any significant way influence the behavior of the states that are big emitters of greenhouse gases, they can be, perhaps not the key factor, but one of the factors that will contribute to intensification of the climate action. Therefore, criticism towards requests for advisory opinions, expressed by many international lawyers, is certainly not unfounded, but, in our view, should not deny their justifiability.