In July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) delivered historic advisory opinions on the obligations of States in relation to climate change and human rights. The two opinions clarified the binding obligations that States have under customary international law, international human rights law, and international climate change treaties to prevent and respond to the harmful effects of climate change. The two international courts further elaborated on a number of distinct legal issues. These include States’ duty to cooperate, in line with the best available science and under a duty of stringent due diligence, to meet climate targets; the erga omnes nature of climate change obligations; and the procedural human rights that States should guarantee as a pre-condition for ensuring the legitimacy and effectiveness of climate action. Crucially, it was emphasised that States’ failure to comply with their climate change obligations may constitute an internationally wrongful act giving rise to the full gamut of legal consequences permitted under customary international law.
This panel will bring together distinguished experts to take stock of the two advisory opinions and discuss: their wide-ranging legal and policy implications for States, individuals and corporates, including the implementation of the opinions’ findings through national, regional or international mechanisms; the likely interactions with the international economic law regime; and the impact of the opinions on judicial and arbitral proceedings relating to climate justice. Looking ahead, panellists will also consider the forthcoming advisory opinion on climate change by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and discuss how that opinion may interact with the existing opinions.
PRE-EVENT INFORMATION
Moderator
- Professor Helene Tigroudja, Professor of Public International Law, Aix-Marseille University (France) and Visiting Research Professor, NUS.
Prof. Dr. Hélène Tigroudja is Professor at Aix-Marseille University (France) and Visiting Professor of Public International Law at CIL-NUS (Singapore). Since 2019, she has served as an Independent Expert of the United Nations Human Rights Committee in charge of the supervision of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In 2025, she was elected Vice-Chair of the UN Human Rights Committee.
For several years, she has also served as lead expert for UNESCO missions on Protection of the Safety of Journalists and the Role of the Judiciary. She is the co-Director of the Masters 2 Humanitarian Action and Law and co-director of the Legal Clinic of Human Rights (Aix-Global Justice). She publishes extensively in public international law and international human rights law. In this regard, she recently published her collected Course at the Hague Academy of International Law on Armed Conflicts and International Human Rights Law (Brill, 2025) and she co-authored International Rights Law - A Treatise published by Cambridge University Press (2025)).
Panellists
- Ambassador Ximena Fuentes, DPhil (Oxon), Ambassador of Chile to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Lawyer (University of Chile), and Former Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Chile (2022–2023)
Previously, Ambassador Fuentes served as the National Director of the Directorate of International Boundaries and Border Zones of the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2015-2022). Ambassador Fuentes was Deputy Judge of the Second Environmental Tribunal of the Republic of Chile (2012-2014) and Agent of the Republic of Chile before the International Court of Justice in Dispute over the Status and Use of the Waters of the Silala (Chile v. Bolivia) (2016-2022). She also acted as adviser to the Government of Chile before the ICJ proceedings in Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v. Chile) (2013-2018) and served as the Representative of Chile in the advisory opinion proceedings before ITLOS and the ICJ (2024-2025) on climate change and international law.
- HE Anita Ashvini Wahid, Indonesian Representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights
HE Ms Anita Ashvini Wahid is the Indonesian Representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission of Human Rights. She is currently a PhD Student at the Australian National University, focusing on the use of disinformation and computational propaganda as weapon of political contestation in Indonesian presidential election of 2024. Beyond her academic work, she has served as Chair of the Democracy and Human Rights Desk at Jaringan GusDurian and a Safety Advisory Council Member at TikTok Asia Pacific.
- Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Amsterdam
Prof. Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Amsterdam, Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Fiji, and a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Her publications include ‘State Responsibility, Climate Change and Human Rights under International Law’ (Hart 2019) and The Cambridge Handbook on Climate Change Litigation (ed. with Sarah Mead, CUP 2025). She served as lead counsel for Vanuatu in the climate change advisory proceedings before the ICJ and the IACtHR, and as counsel for the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law in the advisory proceedings on climate change before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
- Research Associate Professor (CIL) N. Jansen Calamita, Head, International Economic Law and Policy, NUS Centre for International Law
Jansen Calamita is Principal Research Fellow, Centre for International Law, and Research Associate Professor (CIL), Faculty of Law, at the National University of Singapore. He is head of the Centre’s programme on Investment Law and Policy. He was previously Director of the Investment Treaty Forum at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in London. He has previously held posts on the law faculties of the University of Oxford and the University of Birmingham.
Jansen has served in the Office of the Legal Adviser in the U.S Department of State, representing the United States in international claims and investment disputes, including before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal. Previously, he served in the U.N. Office of Legal Affairs in the UNCITRAL Secretariat. He began his career in New York in the litigation/arbitration practice of what is now Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer.
Jansen is a Consultative Expert to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and a member of the editorial board of the Yearbook of International Law and Policy (Oxford University Press).
- Francesca Migrone, Senior Attorney, Climate & Energy Programme, Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL)
Francesca Migrone is a Senior Attorney for the Climate & Energy Programme at CIEL. Before joining CIEL, Francesa was a Policy Officer at Independent Diplomat in Geneva, where she advised the Republic of the Marshall Islands on climate diplomacy, supported the President and Ministers at important international climate meets, and worked with the High Ambition Coalition. During her time at law school, she interned at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington DC and was the youth coordinator of Italian Climate Network. Francesca graduated from LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome where she specialised in international law and also holds a Master’s degree in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva.
This webinar is the third in a series of three webinars convened by the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore, exploring the climate-related advisory opinions by the IACtHR and the ICJ. The recording of Webinar 1 (30 July 2025) on the IACtHR’s advisory opinion is available here. The recording of Webinar 2 (5 August 2025) on the ICJ’s advisory opinion is available here.