Episode 37: The ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on Climate Obligations: Remarkable, Radical and Robust

There were gasps in the courtroom when the ICJ delivered
its advisory opinion on the obligations of States in
respect of climate change on 23 July 2025. In this episode,
Margaret Young (Melbourne Law School), Phoebe Okowa (Queen Mary
University of London, member of the International Law Commission)
and Lavanya Rajamani (Oxford) explore how, with its robust and at
times radical reasoning, the Court has delivered a truly
significant moment for international law.


Scholarship referred to in the episode includes Phoebe N.
Okowa, State Responsibility for Transboundary Air Pollution
in International Law (2000); Lavanya
Rajamani, ‘Interpreting the Paris Agreement in its Normative
Environment’ (2024) 77 Current Legal Problems 167;
Margaret A. Young, ‘Climate Change and Law: A Global
Challenge for Legal Education’ (2021) 40 University of
Queensland Law Journal 351; and Margaret A. Young,
‘Fragmentation’ in Lavanya Rajamani and Jacqueline Peel (eds), Oxford
Handbook of International Environmental Law (2021) 85.