Applier, Interpreter, and Judicial Codifier: the Three Climate Advisory Opinions, Sustainable Development, and International Judicial Legitimacy

Raúl Zeyi Huang

doi:10.21697/2026.15.1.05

Opublikowane: 2026-06-26

Tom 15 Nr 1 (2026)

Applier, Interpreter, and Judicial Codifier: the Three Climate Advisory Opinions, Sustainable Development, and International Judicial Legitimacy

Raúl Zeyi Huang

Polish Review of International and European Law

Dział: Artykuły

https://doi.org/10.21697/2026.15.1.05

Abstrakt

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the International Court of Justice have recently issued three landmark climate advisory opinions. Amidst the long-standing ambiguity of sustainable development in international law, this paper analyzes how the advisory opinions contributed to its clarification and development and proposes a political explanation for their differences. As a treaty applier, the Tribunal was the most conservative in limiting its engagement to a textual interpretation of sustainability provisions in the Framework Convention. As a treaty interpreter, the Inter-American Court actively embraced sustainable development in answering both scientific and legal dimensions of the question presented. As a judicial codifier of international law, the World Court carefully identified shared legal consensus in the international community of States, while its reservation in climate mitigation and adaptation was criticized in Judge Xue’s Separate Opinion. Based on Professor Jorge Viñuales’s theory, after the present Advisory Opinions, sustainability remains a ’normative concept’ in general international law, which supplies conceptual materials for legal and policy instrument and assists clarification of States’ obligations; however, within the regional system of inter-American human rights, the principle has become a fully entitled legal norm as an independent source of States’ obligation that is justiciable. Beyond the permanent debate over whether the advisory opinions have correctly applied law, a proposed political explanation, termed ’international judicial relay’, reveals how the three bodies collaborate by playing to their respective strengths to contribute to the concept’s development at different stages, so that they earn instead of lose legitimacy. The relay began before the Advisory Opinions, and will continue thereafter, that sustainability will be increasingly invoked in future advisory and contentious proceedings specific to trade and investment, and even private commercial disputes applying international law.

Słowa kluczowe:

Sustainable Development, Climate Change, Advisory Opinion , International Courts and Tribunals , Judicial Politics

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Zasady cytowania

Huang, R. Z. (2026). Applier, Interpreter, and Judicial Codifier: the Three Climate Advisory Opinions, Sustainable Development, and International Judicial Legitimacy. Polish Review of International and European Law, 15(1), 145–169. https://doi.org/10.21697/2026.15.1.05

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Utwór dostępny jest na licencji Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa – Bez utworów zależnych 4.0 Międzynarodowe.

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