The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution this week that confirms that countries must comply with their climate commitments - and will ultimately be held liable if they neglect them.
The main purpose of the resolution is actually to emphasize that states must comply with their obligations. What it emphasizes is that states have greater commitments than the Paris Agreement entails, says Jonas Ebbesson, professor of environmental law at Stockholm University.
"Important message"
The resolution is based on and confirms an opinion from the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ) last year. The extensive support could be significant at the UN climate summits, Ebbesson believes.
It means a lot, especially politically, that the states confirm that they have a common ambition to phase out net greenhouse gas emissions. In these times, when some states are backing down on their commitments and pursuing less active climate policies, this is an important message from the UN General Assembly.
The US also has climate obligations under international law, as is clear from the resolution, even though the country voted against it and has left the Paris Agreement. But nothing will happen automatically if the US refuses, according to Johanna Westeson, a lawyer and researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).
Will this lead to the US having to immediately change its climate policy? No, that is the very sad answer. But in the long term, it will become more and more unacceptable to pursue such an expansive emissions policy as the US, Russia and others are pursuing.
"No clear process"
Countries that violate the commitments may be required to pay damages, but it could also involve accepting climate refugees, according to Ebbesson.
"There is no clear process for how this should be done. That type of enforcement is often very difficult in international law, especially against large countries," he says.
Westeson believes that in the short term, the resolution will primarily strengthen the possibilities for legal processes at a regional or national level, where, for example, groups of people hold companies or countries accountable - something we have seen in several high-profile cases in recent years.
It is important to be realistic and say that this is not a “quick fix”. However, from my perspective as a lawyer, I would like to point out that the world's most important court has spoken, and that an overwhelming majority of the world's states have supported it.
