In its recent advisory opinion on States’ obligations in relation to climate change, the ICJ addressed several important dimensions of international environmental law. Most notably, it placed significant emphasis on the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR). The Court acknowledged that climate change has not been primarily caused by developing countries, but is largely the result of decades, if not centuries, of intensive industrial activity undertaken by developed States. In this context, imposing identical mitigation obligations on developing countries, whose historical contribution to global emissions is minimal and whose developmental needs remain pressing, lacks both equity and logic. Any climate regime that disregards these disparities risks undermining the very principles of fairness and justice that underpin international environmental law. The Common but Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR) is “a well-established concept in the regime of international environmental law because it tries to achieve countries’ equity or certain environmental standards by imposing different obligations to different countries when addressing the global issues.”[1]

Principle 7 of the Rio Declaration (1992) and Article 3(1) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) affirm that States share a common responsibility to protect the climate but possess differentiated obligations based on capacity and contribution. It must be noted that the “principle of common but differentiated responsibilities is not merely a legal construct born of treaty negotiations; rather, they are grounded in scientific findings on climate change.”[2] Moreover, the principle not only takes into account the historical disparities, but also stresses the need “to account for present and future inequities.”[3] It is a duty of the developed countries to take........

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