‘Hope With Teeth’: Five Lessons from the ICJ’s Climate Change Advisory Opinion

Abstract This analysis sets out five wider lessons that can be learned from the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change for developing robust legal responses to climate change in national legal systems. These lessons are about the competence of courts; about word work; about deeper legal structures; about thick legal expertise; and about legal imagination. Overall, this study of the Advisory Opinion underscores what is required to ensure the rigorous evolution of legal thinking in light of climate change. To put the matter differently, these are lessons in how to ‘hope with teeth’.