The “landmark” climate case that could finally make big polluters pay

Last month, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark “advisory opinion” stating that nations can be held legally accountable for their emissions. Our editor Adrienne Buller met with Harj Narulla, a barrister on the team representing Solomon Islands before the ICJ, to discuss what the ruling means in the global fight for climate justice. This interview took place remotely on 5th August, 2025, and has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

ADRIENNE BULLER: Could you walk us through what the ruling implies? It’s an “advisory opinion”, and I imagine many people will be wondering what that means in terms of its effects.

HARJ NARULLA: Maybe I'll just start with explaining what advisory opinions are and how they're different to the cases most people are familiar with. Advisory proceedings are different to contentious cases, where you have two different parties coming together to resolve a specific dispute. Instead, they’re a way for international courts to answer questions put to them. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has a particular procedure for how they receive questions, which come from the UN General Assembly, which itself has to pass a resolution and make a request to the court.

In this case, there was a unanimous decision by the UN General Assembly to request the opinion on what countries have to do under international law to address climate change, and that gave the court a big mandate.