In July 03, 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) recognized for the first time a right to a healthy climate in its Advisory Opinion No. 32 (2025) on the “Climate Emergency and Human Rights”. The IACtHR derived the standalone right to a healthy climate from the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, which the International Court of Justice in its 2025 Advisory Opinion on “Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change” considered “a precondition for the enjoyment of many human rights, such as the right to life, the right to health and the right to an adequate standard of living, including access to water, food and housing.” Based on these developments, authors trace the emergence of the right to a safe climate within and outside the Inter-American Human Rights System, both in scholarly works and domestic case law. We then examine the nature and content of the right to a safe climate, including new right holders, duty bearers and corresponding obligations that stem from this right. In this sense, the authors depart from the IACtHR's proposition and detect lacunae and corresponding opportunities for the right's further development in theory and practice. Finally, the authors analyse how this rights revolution sparked by the IACtHR Opinion may boost rights-based climate litigation, as it moves from aspiration to enforceable law.
Kahl et al. (Wed,) studied this question.