New resource: The Climate Advisory Playbook

Government’s international human rights obligations as they relate to climate change are becoming clearer. 

The International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have clarified that governments’ existing legal obligations require them to prevent climate harm. Their advisory opinions carry substantial authority. And for the climate justice movement, they offer new ways to press for accountability.

CESR’s new report, The Climate Advisory Playbook, turns the courts’ findings into practical strategies across four connected fronts: climate finance, fossil fuel phaseout, human rights, and reparations and loss and damage.

The Playbook shows how these opinions can strengthen challenges to continued fossil fuel expansion, clarify governments’ duties to cooperate on climate finance, and support communities facing climate harm in litigation, policy advocacy and campaigns for redress. 

Legal clarity alone will not shift resources or hold polluters to account. Climate, fiscal justice, labour, feminist and human rights movements can use these opinions together to build the pressure needed for change.

The courts have helped define governments’ responsibilities. It is up to us to make those responsibilities count.