The United Nations General Assembly (Unga) voted on Tuesday to formally back the International Court of Justice's landmark climate ruling, with 141 governments affirming that states are legally obligated to cut greenhouse gas emissions and prevent climate harm.
The resolution, spearheaded by Vanuatu alongside several other nations, passed after intense negotiations and multiple proposed amendments, securing 141 votes in favour, eight against and 28 abstentions. The United States, Russia, Belarus, Iran, Israel, Liberia, Saudi Arabia and Yemen voted against. COP31 host Turkey, India, and oil producers Qatar and Nigeria were among those abstaining.
Vanuatu's Prime Minister Jotham Napat said his country was grateful to the 141 member states that voted in favour and to the 90 states that stood together as co-sponsors.
"This outcome is a powerful affirmation that the international community remains committed to the rule of law, multilateral cooperation, and climate justice at a time when these principles are being tested," he said, while acknowledging the resolution was "the first step in a new journey".
The ICJ opinion, issued unanimously last July, was the first time the court examined the international legal framework applicable to climate change. It determined that the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature target, set at COP21 in Paris in 2015, is legally binding under the Paris Agreement and that all states, particularly the largest emitters, must take ambitious mitigation measures in line with the best available science.
The Unga vote was not without friction. Negotiations stretched from an initial target of late March to the eventual May 20 vote date. In the end, a registry that could have provided a basis for reparations was dropped from the final text. The United States said in its explanation of vote that the resolution "singles out certain groups for preferential treatment" and makes "alarmist political statements," calling language around climate change "hyperbolic" and arguing that diplomacy, not an international judicial process, is the appropriate path.
Tasneem Essop, Executive Director of Climate Action Network International, welcomed the outcome but was measured. "This vote is an important and historic political signal that governments are prepared to respond to the legal clarity the ICJ advisory opinion provided," she said. "It also means that major emitters, and particularly historic emitters, can no longer ignore the world's highest court when it comes to the harms caused by climate change. The real test starts now."
What the vote means in court
Tuesday's resolution does more than register political support. The ICJ advisory opinion has already been woven into new climate litigation and existing legal cases, with judges starting to reference it in their rulings. The Unga resolution makes it harder for governments to dismiss. Lea Main-Klingst, a lawyer at ClientEarth, said: "The ICJ gave all of us in the climate movement a massive boost. Now it is time we translate that progress into the national context."
Kenya was among the co-sponsors of the resolution, alongside the Netherlands, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Barbados, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Jamaica, the Philippines and Burkina Faso. Kenya's 2010 Constitution already guarantees the right to a clean and healthy environment under Article 42. By co-sponsoring the resolution, the government has publicly accepted that international climate obligations are binding, a position that Kenyan lawyers can now cite directly in domestic proceedings.
Two rulings from last year point to courts already moving in this direction. In January, the Environment and Land Court in Isiolo cancelled the operations of two wildlife conservancies run by the Northern Rangelands Trust, finding they had been established unconstitutionally on community land without consent. In March, a Nakuru court cancelled the environmental licence of Sosian Energy for failing to carry out adequate public participation before prospecting for geothermal energy inside the Menengai Caldera. Both cases turned on procedural failures.
At the end of 2024, the UN reports that 9.8 million people were internally displaced by climate-related events, mainly in Africa. The continent contributes a small fraction of global historical emissions but disproportionately bears the consequences.
Last May, the Pan African Lawyers Union filed a petition before the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights seeking an advisory opinion on African states' climate obligations under the African Charter. The opinion is expected to provide critical regional legal guidance for future litigation and advocacy on climate justice, corporate accountability, and just energy transitions.
Vishal Prasad, Director of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, whose movement started the campaign that eventually led to the ICJ opinion, said the moment belonged to communities who had refused to give up.
"The journey of this idea from classrooms in the Pacific to The Hague and the United Nations gives us continued hope that when people organise, the world can be moved to act," he said. "Communities on the frontlines have been waiting far too long and continue to pay too high a price for the actions of others."
