The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is an important governance body available to ensure legal protection of the environment through the application of treaty-based and customary law.
Through environmental cases in the court, it has already crystallized concepts such as sustainable development, intergenerational equity, the precautionary principle, general obligations for environment impact assessment and trusteeship of natural resources into principles of international environmental law.
However, the number of environmental cases taken to the ICJ is very low. World Federalist Movement – Institute for Global Policy and the Climate Governance Commission have made proposals to enhance the use of the International Court of Justice to better address environmental conflicts. These include to:
- Increase the number of States accepting the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ;
- Promote greater use by UN bodies of the option to request Advisory Opinions from the ICJ;
- Encourage States with environmental disputes to make more frequent use of the option of taking cases to the ICJ by mutual agreement;
- Add clauses providing for the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ in all future multilateral environmental treaties;
- Encourage States Parties to environmental treaties that provide the option of ICJ jurisdiction for disputes under the treaty in question, to declare acceptance of this option.
- Revive the Environment Chamber of the International Court of Justice (originally established in 1993 but which lapsed in 1996)
The proposals above have overlap with the proposals of the Legal Alternatives to War (LAW not War) campaign which was launched by WFM-IGP and partner organizations in late 2023.