Abstract What is ‘sustainability law’ in the Asia‐Pacific? The term now encompasses fields as varied as biodiversity governance, Indigenous knowledge protection, trade disputes, supply chain regulation, financial disclosure and digital traceability. Existing scholarship has traced the rise of these dispersed regulatory techniques, but less attention has been paid to their cumulative effect on how legal authority is organised across the region. This editorial argues that sustainability law is emerging not primarily as a new body of environmental doctrine but as a shift in how environmental objectives are pursued through law. Law increasingly operates upstream, embedding environmental objectives within the regimes that structure trade, finance, markets and information flows. In doing so, it reshapes where regulatory authority is exercised, how responsibility is distributed and which forms of knowledge acquire regulatory force. The contributions to this Special Issue examine how these dynamics unfold across the Asia‐Pacific. They show that the distinctiveness of sustainability law lies not in the proliferation of new environmental rules, but in the sites and legal frameworks through which environmental outcomes are shaped before environmental law is formally engaged.
Abstract Due diligence plays a central role in the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion on States' obligations in respect of climate change, which places particular emphasis on this substantive standard of conduct. The authors examine how the Court articulates a generally ‘stringent’ due diligence standard applicable in the context of climate change. While the Court did not provide much guidance on what is implied by characterising the due diligence standard as ‘stringent’, this article proposes that stringency requires a greater depth and breadth of policies, as well as balancing competing policy interests in favour of preventing climate change. In particular, the article addresses two issues relevant to an in concreto determination of the due diligence standard that remain insufficiently clarified following the advisory opinion. The first concerns the temporal application of the customary law obligation to exercise due diligence in preventing significant transboundary harm in the context of climate change. The second concerns the methodology for differentiating the applicable standard of due diligence, following the Court's reliance on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities as a factor in determining a varying standard of due diligence. With respect to the first issue, the article argues that, since knowledge of the risks and the causal link is a prerequisite for due diligence, the customary due diligence obligations to prevent significant harm to the environment became applicable to climate change in the late 1980s or 1990, coinciding with the emergence of sufficiently reliable scientific evidence. With respect to the second issue, the authors argue that, although the Court refers to historical responsibility, the level of diligence required of a State should be determined primarily by its present‐day capacity, and current and future emissions, as the duty to prevent significant environmental harm is a forward‐looking obligation.
The International Court of Justice's 2025 Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change deploys the phrase 'trustees of humanity' in the context of intergenerational equity, offering a striking convergence with the theory of sovereignty advanced in my Sovereigns as Trustees of Humanity (2013). This essay examines the relationship between the two. It argues that the Opinion supports the earlier theory in several important respectsrejecting purely domestic conceptions of sovereign responsibility, affirming sovereignty's embedment in a broader normative order, and requiring other-regarding conduct-while also developing it in ways unforeseen by the earlier account. The essay also argues that the trusteeship framework resolves a question the Opinion leaves open: when do States' obligations with respect to greenhouse gas emissions arise? Finally, the essay reflects on the Opinion's possible significance for the evolving grammar of sovereignty in light of contemporary geopolitical challenges.
The carbon sink capacity of ecosystems has long been neglected, leading to their degradation and the release of stored carbon, thereby exacerbating climate change. As parties increasingly resort to courts to resolve controversies over the sufficiency of measures to combat climate change, carbon sinks are emerging as a focal point. In Europe, non-governmental organisations in Finland and Germany brought lawsuits in 2022 against their governments for failing to meet statutory obligations under national climate legislation, specifically in the land-use sector. In light of the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion, which affirms the importance of enhancing carbon sinks for fulfilling States' duties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sinks are likely to continue to feature in climate cases. This article provides a comparative analysis of key elements in the Finnish and German cases to explore the potential of statutory law-based arguments to challenge carbon sink degradation in other national contexts. Furthermore, it explores the possible limits of legal strategies that focus on carbon reduction goals, without taking account of competing, or perhaps complementary, social values and biodiversity protection goals. The legal strategies examined are of broader relevance and may serve as a blueprint for similar actions in other jurisdictions, even as their divergent outcomes underscore the importance of differences in legal systems. Specifically, the article considers the possibility of a similar challenge in Ireland, aimed at addressing the degradation of peatlands, an ecosystem that remains underexplored in legal scholarship despite being the most space-efficient terrestrial carbon sink. Through imagining the scenario in Ireland and anticipating the complexities and opportunities of such a legal action, the article contributes to an emerging body of legal research on the role of carbon sinks in climate litigation, while also highlighting the limitations of advancing their protection through the courts.
Abstract Against the backdrop of the growing need for legal innovation in environmental protection, this article explores the interplay between Rights of Nature (RoN)—a legal theory asserting that the inherent moral value of nature must be protected legally by granting rights and legal personality to nature itself—and the EU constitutional right of access to justice. The contribution discusses whether the implementation of RoN and environmental legal personality (ELP) in EU law could enhance access to justice in environmental matters before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The analysis is carried out through a ‘thought experiment’, in which the annulment case Azores , at the time declared inadmissible, is re‐assessed in a hypothetical scenario in which EU law has implemented RoN and granted ELP to specific natural entities. The ‘experiment’ demonstrates that implementing RoN in EU law would, under certain circumstances, allow natural entities to start an annulment action as a non‐privileged applicant under Article 263(4) Treaty on the Function of the European Union and to fulfil the requirement of individual concern. This would result in an improvement in access to justice in environmental matters before the CJEU without the need to change the Plaumann doctrine and the requirements of admissibility contained in the Treaties.
Abstract This article examines the ICJ's interpretation of the Paris Agreement's core mitigation obligations to determine how, on what basis, and to what effect the ICJ disciplined national determination in the operation of the Paris Agreement. In so doing, it analyses the extent to which the ICJ's interpretation strengthens the legal character of the Paris Agreement's mitigation obligations. It argues that while the ICJ's interpretation strengthens the legal character of the Paris Agreement's mitigation obligations along some dimensions, notably normative content, language and precision, along the dimensions of oversight and review, national determination is still dominant, thus potentially diluting the operational impact of the ICJ's robust reframing of the Paris Agreement's mitigation obligations.
This article argues that the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Climate Change is the first substantial judicial articulation of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities ('CBDR-RC'). Earlier judicial engagements with CBDR-RC, including by the European Court of Human Rights, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ('ITLOS'), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, recognised the principle's relevance without articulating its operational content. The ICJ advances the analysis in two related respects: it characterises CBDR-RC as a manifestation of equity carrying a distributive function, and it ties the principle to the customary duty of due diligence to prevent significant environmental harm. The Court also states that CBDR-RC does not itself establish new obligations. That formulation leaves unresolved the tension - identified by Judge Xue - between equity's interpretive operation and its capacity to generate substantive norms. The due diligence analysis gives CBDR-RC immediate operative effect within the Court's framework, without foreclosing the possibility that the principle may have freestanding substantive consequences. Differentiation may calibrate the standard of due diligence according to a State's contributions, capabilities and national circumstances, but it cannot reduce that standard to a point at which the underlying obligation is deprived of its protective content. The reasoning of the ITLOS Seabed Disputes Chamber and the minimum-core doctrine of international human rights law support a minimum protective floor. The General Assembly's follow-up resolution of 20 May 2026, which calls upon States to act with due diligence in accordance with CBDR-RC, confirms the practical significance of this reading. The result is a framework through which climate-related disputes can be argued and adjudicated without either flattening inequalities among States or allowing differentiation to become a licence for inaction.
Carbon markets promote nature-based solutions (NbS) as a means of advancing climate mitigation and biodiversity objectives. Credits from these activities frequently claim benefits beyond carbon. Yet, legal frameworks remain largely structured around carbon accounting, raising questions about how broader environmental outcomes are addressed in practice. Environmental integrity encompasses both harm avoidance through safeguards and the proactive generation of environmental co-benefits, but their legal treatment remains uneven. This article examines whether, how and with what legal effects environmental co-benefits are integrated into carbon market governance. It undertakes a comparative, multi-level analysis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the European Union Carbon Removal Certification Framework (EU CRCF) and leading voluntary carbon market (VCM) standards. The comparison identifies two patterns. First, environmental safeguards are commonly embedded as procedural risk-management mechanisms tied to monitoring, eligibility and certification requirements, whereas environmental co-benefits are recognised but operationalised through flexible or incentive-based mechanisms, such as disclosure tools, contractual arrangements and market incentives, primarily at the project level. Second, implementation varies across governance levels: UNFCCC mechanisms combine international rules with national implementation; the EU CRCF operates as a regional regulatory certification framework; and VCM standards rely on private certification and verification. These patterns reveal a fragmented governance landscape in which public regulation and private standards structure environmental outcomes while allocating responsibilities unevenly across market actors.
Climate justice has become a standard reference point in commentary on climate litigation-including discussion of the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) Advisory Opinion (AO) on States' climate obligations-yet it is often invoked without conceptual precision, limiting nuanced assessment of how climate litigation can advance climate justice. This article reads the AO through a Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) climate-justice lens. Building on climate-justice scholarship, we apply a three-part framework-distributional, procedural and recognition justice-to ask what Pacific SIDS sought in the AO proceedings and how the Court responded. The analysis draws on Pacific SIDS submissions and contrasts them with nine non-SIDS submissions. We show that Pacific SIDS frame climate change as an existential threat to self-determination-political, cultural and economic-shaped by colonial, racial and economic inequality. Their submissions translate this diagnosis into six clusters of legal claims: stringent, fossil-fuel-focused mitigation based on due diligence and prevention (and tied to the 1.5 degrees C goal); continuity of statehood and maritime entitlements despite sea-level rise; protection and cooperation in relation to climate-related displacement; human-rights-centred approaches (including cultural and intergenerational dimensions and extraterritorial effects); substantial and predictable financial support, including for loss and damage; and structural reforms to climate governance and related economic rules. Read through this lens, the AO most clearly advances climate justice where it clarifies sources of obligation, sharpens standards of diligence and cooperation and links climate harm to human rights and remedies. It is more cautious on quantification of finance and mitigation and on institutional redesign. We conclude by identifying concrete pathways through which Pacific SIDS and allies can use the AO in diplomacy and litigation to pursue fairer, more inclusive and more respectful climate outcomes.
While responsible for nearly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, food systems long remained peripheral to the legal and political architecture of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This article outlines the policy shifts that have led food systems to become increasingly central to the UNFCCC and its Conference of the Parties (COP) framework. We first examine how, from COP28 in Dubai to COP30 in Bel & eacute;m, food systems have emerged as a testing ground for integrating ecological integrity, social justice and climate governance. We then explore how recent COP-related developments, including the UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, the FAO Global Roadmap for Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) without Breaching the 1.5 degrees C Threshold and the Alliance of Champions, have started to reshape the contours of international climate law by bringing food, land and biodiversity into core negotiation tracks. Nevertheless, these developments remain tentative: binding commitments are scarce, climate finance flows remain inequitable, and most Nationally Determined Contributions have so far tended to address food-related emissions and vulnerabilities in a partial and uneven manner, rather than integrating them systematically. COP30 confirmed both the growing visibility and the persistent fragility of the food-systems agenda within the UNFCCC. While the Bel & eacute;m outcomes consolidated some procedural progress, particularly on adaptation and human-centred climate action, they stopped short of positioning food systems as a coherent and enforceable pillar of international climate governance.
This article examines jurisprudence from key African and Latin American human rights bodies regarding the right to a healthy environment, with a focus on recent jurisprudence (2023-2025). It identifies a growing trend of an ecocentric interpretation of the right, which acknowledges that the environment and the life forms within it hold intrinsic value, independently of human beings. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has expressly confirmed its ecocentric reading of the right, and African institutions such as the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights and the ECOWAS Court of Justice have implied a similar shift away from a traditional anthropocentric interpretation. This conceptual shift raises important questions for environmental litigation, including its potential to facilitate environmental standard-setting and to broaden legal standing. While some scholars argue that ecocentrism could support litigation on behalf of nature itself, others suggest it may better address diffuse and widespread environmental harm, such as climate change, where identifying specific victims is difficult. Despite its promise, the ecocentric approach remains constrained by existing procedural frameworks and human-centred treaty language, leaving its practical impact still uncertain.
Amid escalating climate crisis, multilateralism and climate treaties remain the foundation of global climate governance. Yet, Canada's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, the US's two withdrawals from the Paris Agreement and its more recent withdrawal from the UNFCCC reveal a deep structural vulnerability: The formulaic design of withdrawal clauses has failed to evolve with contemporary political and normative realities, thereby undermining institutional resilience. This article attempts to re-examine withdrawal provisions through textual analysis, case studies of State withdrawals and assessment of their overt and latent consequences. It argues for reforming withdrawal clauses within the climate regime to reinforce trust, prevent normative regression and sustain collective climate ambition. This article further proposes several potential reform paths and assesses their feasibility from two dimensions: substantive design, including deletion of exit clauses, extension of waiting and notice periods and imposition of justification requirements, and institutional incorporation, encompassing amendment of existing agreements, negotiation of new ones or reform through soft-law instruments. The aim of reform is not to abolish the right of withdrawal but redefine it as a regulated, accountable and reviewable process, one that strengthens both the ambition and legal resilience of global climate governance.
The EU is expediting environmental permitting for strategic projects to accelerate their deployment. To this end, it has adopted several legal acts to streamline permit-granting procedures. This article analyses how these streamlining measures function by applying the conceptual framework of streamlining strategies. It argues that the streamlining measures in EU law rely on three main strategies: setting binding permitting timelines, centralising leadership and decision-making, and reducing the scope of permit-granting procedures. While these strategies can expedite permitting, the article contends that they also pose challenges that may hamper procedures' capacity to achieve their statutory objectives. However, by surveying EU acts, the article demonstrates that streamlining measures can be designed to mitigate the associated challenges. Through this analysis, the article further develops streamlining strategies as a conceptual tool to guide the design of effective permitting reforms and inform the academic debate surrounding them.
