ADRO 25A17 - Climate rights

Taking the 2025 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Obligation of States in respect of Climate Change as a frame or palimpsest, this course traces out the emergence of a new idiom of climate rights. This new species of right has emerged through the evolution of the postwar understanding of human rights into an understanding of rights as being essentially ecological or bio-cultural in character. The recognition of human rights or a human right to habitation necessarily passes through the recognition of the claims of other beings or entities, including the planet itself. This involves not so much an extension of human rights to other beings, so much as a radical rethinking of what rights are and how they function. We shall explore the emergence of this new idiom in cases from diverse jurisdictions, highlighting the new juridical imaginary that is coming into being. We shall take in the emergence of rights of nature, the idea of Earth systems law, and the question of the rights of future generations.

Climate rights

Taking the 2025 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Obligation of States in respect of Climate Change as a frame or palimpsest, this course traces out the emergence of a new idiom of climate rights. This new species of right has emerged through the evolution of the postwar understanding of human rights into an understanding of rights as being essentially ecological or bio-cultural in character. The recognition of human rights or a human right to habitation necessarily passes through the recognition of the claims of other beings or entities, including the planet itself. This involves not so much an extension of human rights to other beings, so much as a radical rethinking of what rights are and how they function. We shall explore the emergence of this new idiom in cases from diverse jurisdictions, highlighting the new juridical imaginary that is coming into being. We shall take in the emergence of rights of nature, the idea of Earth systems law, and the question of the rights of future generations.

Course outline

1 Introduction. Human rights in the epoch of climate change

2 A new ecology of rights

3 Responsibility reimagined

4 A new law of obligations?

5 The right to science

6 Climate justice: whose law is it?

7 Loss and damage

8 Future generations

9 Rights of nature

10 Earth systems law: boundaries and thresholds

11 A right to pollute?

12 Class symposium

No prerequisites

One individual paper of 4000 words, worth 80% of the final grade, and one group presentation, worth 20% of the final grade.