By Ahmed Elseidi, Public Interest Environmental Lawyer and Head of the Board, Egyptian Foundation for Environmental Rights (EFER)
On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague witnessed an historic event with the issuance of its Advisory Opinion (AO) on climate change. This Advisory Opinion marks a watershed moment for climate justice.
The Opinion is considered the Court’s largest judicial act in the advisory realm in terms of the number of parties, briefs, and oral arguments. The process began with a request from the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on 29 March 2023, followed by the submission of 91 briefs and 62 written comments. The Court heard 96 oral arguments from States and 11 from international organizations.
This opinion was driven by the increasing repercussions of climate change that disproportionately affect the Global South and the most vulnerable populations, despite their minimal contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This highlights the importance of climate justice, which aims to protect the most affected groups and ensure their participation in solutions.
Although the concept of climate justice has been a subject of broad discussions, this Advisory Opinion now grants it clear international legal and judicial legitimacy from the highest international judicial body, serving as a legal and preventative roadmap to avert the crisis.
Highlights of the Advisory Opinion
The Advisory Opinion addressed several key topics, where the Court provided significant legal interpretations and confirmations. The most important of all is the explicit and clear confirmation of the direct link between climate change and human rights – a legal issue previously explored by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). The Court connected the impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, extreme weather, and desertification, with the resulting direct violations of numerous internationally recognized human rights, including the right to a healthy environment and the rights to life, health, food, and water.
The Opinion also reaffirmed States’ obligations towards climate justice, as the Court stressed that States are not only obligated to reduce their emissions (mitigation) and adapt to climate change impacts (adaptation), but they also have legal obligations to ensure that their climate actions and policies are consistent with the principles of human rights and justice. The opinion also emphasized that climate actions and policies must include:
- Consideration for vulnerable and marginalized groups;
- The right to full and effective community participation;
- The right to access climate information; and
- The right to access justice.
The responsibility of international oil and gas companies in North African countries
This Advisory Opinion casts a shadow on the actions of international oil and gas companies in North Africa, considered fertile ground for exploration and extraction, with little regard for climate change and the damage these operations leave behind, for which not only we, but future generations all over the world, could pay the price.
Global oil and gas companies sell a myth to our countries through unjust contracts that are not disclosed to anyone, whether they are government officials, civil society members, or environmental activists. The affected individuals and communities do not participate in agreeing on or drafting their terms. These contracts are concluded for many years without oversight or accountability, exploiting the countries’ natural resources for the benefit of multinational corporations, most of which are not subject to national laws and often hide behind national companies with different names to evade accountability.
With the issuance of the ICJ Advisory Opinion, there is now a legal obligation for governments and States not only to reduce emissions but also to ensure that their climate policies are consistent with the principles of human rights and justice. This means that North African countries must consider the protection of the most vulnerable groups, such as local communities affected by exploration and production projects, and ensure their participation in climate decision making. In addition, the Advisory Opinion focused on the need for States to implement in earnest their climate pledges, or nationally determined contributions (NDCs), while respecting human rights.
In this regard, the Court explicitly stated that “a State’s failure to take appropriate measures to protect the climate system through fossil fuel production, consumption, or the granting of exploration licenses, or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies, may constitute an internationally wrongful act.” This statement reflects the central legal principle of state responsibility for inaction in the context of climate change, placing a significant legal burden on States to strictly monitor and regulate these companies to avoid future accountability.
A call for responsibility and transparency
International oil and gas companies must initiate the adoption of different policies from those they have pursued in the past and are currently pursuing. They must share their climate-related information transparently and allow individuals, civil society organizations (CSOs), and local communities to genuinely participate in climate decisions affecting them – based on respect for human rights – to avoid future accountability based on the Advisory Opinion.
Our hope in the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
Finally, we believe there is a golden opportunity for the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to benefit from this Advisory Opinion, which raises sensitive issues related to the rights of Indigenous and local peoples, especially concerning carbon projects that may violate their fundamental rights and cause land disputes. We hope by shedding light on the role of international oil and gas companies in Africa and their lack of respect for national laws and international agreements related to climate change, the ICJ Advisory Opinion helps make a difference for people facing the worst of climate change impacts firsthand.
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This Guest Article is part of a project that seeks to raise awareness and build momentum and knowledge around the ICJ advisory opinion on obligations of States in respect of climate change and to promote a better understanding of the implications of the advisory opinion among sustainable development decision makers.