Inter-American Court Recognizes Human Right to a Healthy Climate

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) has issued an advisory opinion recognizing the human right to a healthy climate. The Court has ruled that “States have an obligation to act in accordance with a standard of enhanced due diligence to counter the human causes of climate change and to protect people under their jurisdiction from climate impacts,” especially the most vulnerable.

In its advisory opinion, the Court relies on “the best available science” to conclude that “the current situation constitutes a climate emergency,”due to the accelerated global temperature rise, resulting from anthropogenic activities. These activities, “produced unequally” by different States, “incrementally affect and seriously threaten humanity and, especially, the most vulnerable people,” the Court finds. The IACtHR concludes that the climate emergency “can only be adequately addressed through urgent and effective” action to advance mitigation, adaptation, and sustainable development, using a human rights perspective and a resilience lens.

In line with “the general obligation to ensure the progressive development of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, States must allocate the maximum available resources to protect persons and groups who, because they are in vulnerable situations, are exposed to the most severe impacts of climate change,” the advisory opinion notes.

Other obligations of States in the context of the climate emergency, as affirmed by the IACtHR, include duties to: integrate into domestic legal frameworks regulations to ensure the respect, guarantee, and progressive development of human rights; and cooperate in good faith to advance the respect, guarantee, and progressive development of human rights threatened or affected by climate change.

By a vote of four in favor and three against, the Court also identifies the “recognition of Nature and its components as subjects of rights” as a normative development that: “reinforces the protection of the integrity and functionality of ecosystems”; provides effective legal tools to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss; and “facilitates the prevention of existential damage before it becomes irreversible.” Representing interdependence between human rights and the environment, this development “reflects a growing trend at the international level to strengthen the protection of ecological systems from present and future threats,” the advisory opinion states.

The Court further recognizes the right to a healthy climate as a component of the right to a healthy environment, following its 2017 advisory opinion, which recognized the latter. The Court rules that under the right to a healthy climate, States must “protect the global climate system and prevent human rights violations resulting from its disruption” by adopting regulations that define a mitigation target and a human rights-based mitigation strategy, regulating the behavior of companies, adopting mitigation monitoring and control measures, and determining the climate impact of projects and activities.

The IACtHR also specifies States’ climate emergency-related obligations under:

The right to a healthy environment;
The rights to life, personal integrity, health, private and family life, property and housing, freedom of residence and movement, water and food, work and social security, culture, and education;
The human right to science and the recognition of local, traditional, and Indigenous knowledge;
The right of access to information;
The right to political participation;
The right of access to justice; and
The right to defend human rights.

The Court’s advisory opinion follows the 2023 request from Chile and Colombia, seeking to “clarify the scope of State obligations, in its individual and collective dimension, to respond to the climate emergency.” The applicants inquired into the nature of State responsibilities in managing the climate emergency, particularly the duty to prevent and mitigate the impacts on human rights, actions to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change, adaptation and mitigation measures, and the management of climate-induced loss and damage.

Other issues raised in the request concern: duties inherent to the right to life; the rights of children and new generations; and States’ common but differentiated responsibilities.

Extensive stakeholder consultations preceded the delivery of the advisory opinion, including written submissions and workshops for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society, including for children, marking one of the most inclusive participation efforts by any international tribunal.

Dated 29 May 2025, the IACtHR advisory opinion was issued some two months before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is due to deliver an advisory opinion of its own on obligations of States with respect to climate change. [IACtHR Advisory Opinion: Climate Emergency and Human Rights (in Spanish)] [Unofficial English Translation]

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This news story 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.