Danish daily Information reports that the International Court of Justice’s 2025 climate opinion has made lawsuits a tool for states, not only for climate activists.
Information published the analysis on August 20, 2026, as part of its series on the international legal order. It examines the consequences of the advisory opinion the ICJ delivered in The Hague on July 23, 2025.
The opinion describes climate change as an urgent and existential threat. It states that countries must work to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, and that they can be held legally responsible if they fail their climate obligations. It also finds that states in breach can be required to compensate countries that suffer damage.
Linnéa Nordlander, associate professor of law at Lund University, told Information that the compensation element may be the most consequential part. According to her, the opinion confirms that there is a potential cost attached to insufficient climate action.
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Nordlander wrote in Information in 2025 that the opinion also opens the way for states that are not seeking damages themselves, such as Denmark, to bring cases against countries that delay climate action. Cases before the ICJ still require that both states have accepted the court’s jurisdiction.
No case has yet been brought in Denmark challenging the state’s overall climate policy on human rights grounds. Nordlander expects Danish courts to take a line similar to Sweden’s. The Swedish Supreme Court declined in early 2025 to hear a class action from around 300 young people connected to the Aurora movement.
She points instead to targeted cases against single carbon intensive projects. One example is the Hejre oil and gas field, where Greenpeace complained to the Energy Board of Appeal in April 2024 over the Danish Energy Agency’s approval of an application from INEOS. The agency had not assessed the climate effect of burning the extracted oil and gas.
That decision was annulled and sent back for renewed processing. The agency approved a new application in May 2026, which Greenpeace has again challenged. In July, a Danish couple filed a complaint on behalf of their two-year-old son together with Klimabevægelsen i Danmark, arguing the project breaches his human rights.
The opinion has since gained political backing. UN News reports that the General Assembly adopted a resolution supporting it on May 20, 2026, with 141 votes in favor, eight against and 28 abstentions, in a process led by Vanuatu. France 24 notes that the United States, Russia and Iran were among the eight opposing states.
Courts in Canada, France and the Netherlands have referred to the opinion in rulings from 2026. As reported by The Guardian, a court in The Hague in January ordered the Dutch state to adopt binding reduction targets within 18 months and to prepare an adaptation plan for the Caribbean island of Bonaire.
Nordlander considers it more likely that states will first use the opinion politically at the annual COP negotiations than in lawsuits against each other. According to a 2026 report from the London School of Economics, the total number of climate related court cases has passed 3,600.
