The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has found countries are obliged to protect the oceans from climate change impacts under the law of the sea.
The tribunal’s 21 judges issued a unanimous Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and International Law on May 21. It’s a landmark decision. For the first time an international court or tribunal has laid out the extent of state obligations to mitigate climate change under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
These findings are significant because ocean and climate are fundamentally linked. The global ocean covers 72% of Earth’s surface and holds 98% of its water. The advisory opinion cited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2019 finding that the ocean had taken up 90% of the excess heat in the climate system.
