This webinar will focus on how Latin America is helping define the legal architecture of the climate emergency. In 2025, eight years after its first analysis of the right to a healthy environment (Advisory Opinion 23/17), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued Advisory Opinion 32/25, the first comprehensive human rights ruling to recognize the protection of nature as a subject of rights and the right to a healthy climate. This event brings together three renowned experts, including an Inter-American Court judge, to explain the new advisory opinion into practice for policymakers, litigators, and advocates. We will unpack the opinion’s core holdings — jus cogens obligations, reinforced obligations, environmental due diligence, protection of vulnerable groups, and expanded procedural rights. We will also situate the AO-32/25 alongside parallel global developments, including the ICJ’s 2025 advisory opinion on states’ erga omnes climate duties and ITLOS’s 2024 opinion treating greenhouse gases as marine pollution, which together reinforce that climate inaction can trigger international responsibility and reparations.
Panelists:
- Verónica Gómez, Judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
- Viviana Krsiticevic, Executive Director at CEJIL
- Elisa Morgera, UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights
Moderator:
- Francisco Quintana, Human Rights Interest Group of the American Society of International Law