Essay by Eric Worrall
Nobody paid attention to the International Court of Justice, so now they’re hoping a UN Resolution will do the trick.
PRESS RELEASES / SPECIAL PROCEDURES
UN experts urge states to support General Assembly resolution operationalising ICJ Advisory Opinion on climate obligations
12 March 2026
GENEVA – All states must support a UN General Assembly resolution upholding the 2025 Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on climate change obligations, UN experts* said today, expressing concern about attempts to block discussion of the proposal.
“The timing of the General Assembly resolution is critical,” the experts said, as the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu leads negotiations on the resolution during the second half of May.
The proposal comes amidst new data indicating that the 1.5°C limit on global temperature rise under the Paris Agreement could be exceeded as early as May 2029, and recent cyclones, hurricanes, forest fires and floods across Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and Africa have already caused severe human rights impacts and losses.
“The Advisory Opinion was unanimous in response to a consensus request from the General Assembly,” they recalled. “The Opinion is based on a range of international legally binding sources of international law on how to effectively prevent further climate harm and its devastating impacts on lives, societies and economies.”
“We are gravely concerned about attempts to block the resolution from being considered at the UNGA,” the experts said. “States must comply with their obligations to cooperate in the effective protection of the environment, the climate system and human rights.”
“There is a disturbing pattern of growing obstruction across UN processes against explicit references to fossil fuels and the ICJ Advisory Opinion, including at the Human Rights Council,” they warned.
They noted that States at the UN Climate Conference of November 2025 (COP30) were unable to uphold the legal and scientific standards clarified by the ICJ, or agree on meaningful outcomes on climate mitigation.
“States must not delay “difficult” conversations,” the experts said, calling on countries to step up efforts to find inclusive, meaningful ways to comply with international obligations and effectively protect people from inter-linked planetary crises, growing economic inequality and armed aggression connected with the fossil fuel-based economy.
“We applaud over 80 States from different regions that pointed out the problematic dynamics at COP30 and launched a separate multilateral conference to advance concrete and fair action to transition away from fossil fuels, under the leadership of Colombia and the Netherlands.”
The draft resolution could support a collaborative and inclusive approach to fulfilling States’ obligations to legislate on the fossil fuel phase-out, remove fossil fuel subsidies, document climate harm and respond to reparation claims, the experts said. These efforts could complement the Paris Agreement’s Loss and Damage Fund, which remains severely underfunded and in need of reform to support affected communities.
“Instead of resorting to adversarial measures, States must see this resolution as something that will benefit them all, through mutual learning and international cooperation on the climate crisis that is spreading across all continents,” they said.
The experts recalled that reparations identified by the ICJ overlap with States’ pre-existing obligations to prevent environmental and human rights harm, conserve and restore ecosystems, and fund effective environmental action in countries most affected by climate change and least responsible for it.
“A General Assembly resolution will set the direction for multilateral action towards the effective protection of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, including a safe climate, as a precondition for peace and the enjoyment of all human rights by present and future generations,” they said.
*The experts:
- Elisa Morgera, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change
- Astrid Puentes Riaño, Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment
- Marcos A. Orellana, the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes
Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organisation, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR.
Country-specific observations and recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights Index https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/
For inquiries and media requests, please contact: Frederique Bourque, frederique.bourque@un.org
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts, please contact Maya Derouaz (maya.derouaz@un.org) or Dharisha Indraguptha (dharisha.indraguptha@un.org)Follow news related to the UN’s independent human rights experts on X: @UN_SPExperts.
Read more: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/03/un-experts-urge-states-support-general-assembly-resolution-operationalising
This is hilarious. Having squandered the ICJ’s political capital on a meaningless climate obligation ruling which nobody cares about, they now want to squander what remains of the UN’s political capital by ruling the Trump administration must comply with their fossil fuel phaseout.
The sooner the useless United Nations is disbanded, the better.
