On 20 May, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly made a vital commitment to protect people from climate impacts, adopting a resolution on the obligations of states in relation to climate change. The resolution follows up on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion issued last year, which found that states have a legal duty to use all means at their disposal to prevent activities that cause environmental harm, which means they must cut greenhouse gas emissions. Most states voted for the resolution despite a concerted campaign by the Trump administration to block it.

Landmark ruling

The ICJ ruling was a landmark moment. Its unanimous conclusions rejected arguments advanced by petrostates and powerful global north states that asserted that individual countries couldn’t be held responsible for their contributions to climate harm. It reaffirmed the importance of the Paris Agreement but also rooted its opinion in the wider body of established international law to make clear that climate change is a human rights issue, because the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is essential for the enjoyment of other human rights. It found that states have a duty to cooperate in good faith to achieve climate goals. The ruling also means that if states breach their climate obligations, this constitutes an intentionally wrongful act, which means they can face legal challenges to change their conduct and provide reparations.

The ICJ case was brought by the government of Vanuatu, backed by other Pacific Islands states that are on the frontlines of the damage caused by climate change. It was also a victory for civil society, because the campaign to seek a ruling was started by 27 law students who formed an organisation, Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, to pressure their governments to go to the court.

The ICJ’s advisory opinions aren’t legally binding, but their reasoning often plays a part in national and regional-level litigation efforts, strengthening the climate lawsuits civil society is increasingly bringing against states and corporations to block harmful acts and hold them to national and international commitments. The climate advisory opinion is already being referenced in court hearings. Last year, a Brazilian judge cited the advisory opinion in ordering a coalmine and thermoelectric plant to cease operations, although his ruling is currently on hold pending an appeal.

From ruling to resolution

Powerful states are doing their best to ignore the ruling. At the latest annual global climate summit, COP30, held in Brazil, the Saudi Arabian government vetoed any reference to it. Vanuatu therefore pushed for the General Assembly resolution to recognise the international legal standing of the judgment and encourage greater implementation. The resolution also keeps the ruling in the international spotlight, mandating a report to be presented to next year’s General Assembly on ways of advancing compliance with the ICJ’s conclusions.

Approval was far from unanimous. The Trump administration urged its allies to pressure Vanuatu to withdraw the resolution, part of its extensive campaign to defend the interests of fossil fuel corporations. It has also renounced the Paris Agreement and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, withdrawn from an array of international climate and environmental bodies and blocked an agreement on global shipping emissions.

Vanuatu refused to back down, although opposition forced it to compromise by dropping parts of the draft, including a proposal to create a registry of the loss and damage caused by climate change, which could have strengthened compensation demands. Campaigners criticised European Union states for not doing enough to support the resolution.

Eight states still voted against: Belarus, Iran, Israel, Liberia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the USA and Yemen, a roll call of petrostates, countries that routinely ignore international rules, and their close allies. The Trump administration continues to challenge the resolution, having issued a statement questioning its legality. A further 28 states, including high-profile countries such as Argentina, India, Nigeria and South Africa, abstained.

Momentum and resistance

While support for the resolution isn’t unanimous, states that backed it have made clear that action on the climate crisis isn’t a question of political convenience, but a matter of respecting international law.

The resolution further contributes to the growing momentum behind climate action, despite the attempts of a handful of powerful states to drag the world backwards. Renewables now provide around 30 per cent of global electricity, and renewable energy investments in 2025, at US$2.4 trillion, were more than double those in fossil fuels. The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, held in April, brought together 57 states to commit to developing national roadmaps to phase out fossil fuel production and consumption.

These moves are having an impact. In May, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which provides scientific advice on climate policies, dropped its worst-case scenario for the possible effects of climate change, under which global temperatures could have risen to 4.5 degrees above preindustrial levels, because emissions cuts so far have made a difference.

The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil supplies flow, as part of the Israeli-US war on Iran, has brought increased recognition of the reality that fossil fuel dependence benefits only a few petrostates and leaves everyone else vulnerable. The war has, for example, sparked a surge in electric vehicle sales in Europe and a major expansion of solar power plans in South Korea.

Activists in the crosshairs

The ICJ case offers just one example of how civil society is making a crucial difference in pushing for climate action. Using a wide range of tactics, including street protests, nonviolent direct action, public campaigning and litigation, activists are urging ambition and implementation of domestic and international commitments, and resisting new fossil fuel projects. They’re making clear that climate action is more than a matter of cutting emissions. It’s about protecting human rights and rebalancing power to make the world more equal and just.

But they’re paying a heavy price. Climate and environmental activists and Indigenous and land rights defenders face severe repression. Fossil fuel corporations and the states they’ve effectively captured are lashing out, seeking to delay fossil fuel phaseout for as long as possible, because every day of delay means further profits, even as every fraction of a degree of temperature rise worsens the impacts for millions of people. They’re using criminalisation and violence to try to suppress civil society’s voices.

The Business and Human Rights Centre found that in 2025, three-quarters of almost 800 attacks it documented against people who spoke out against businesses targeted those who mobilised on climate, environmental and land rights issues.

Attacks are widespread, across the global north and global south, including in countries that try to present themselves as climate champions but aren’t doing enough to walk the talk. The French government has repeatedly vilified environmental campaigners, enabling criminalisation and police violence against their protests. Last year the German government launched an inquiry into public funding of environmental groups, the Dutch parliament adopted a motion declaring Extinction Rebellion an ‘unlawful, society-disrupting and vandalistic organisation’ and the Portuguese government named environmental groups in a section on terrorism of its annual security report. Authorities in Australia and New Zealand have arrested numerous people at climate and environmental protests, including in opposition to coal mining.

Ten activists from the Mother Nature Cambodia environmental group remain in jail, having been handed heavy sentences in 2024 in retaliation for their work to raise public awareness about the impacts of extractive and infrastructure projects. They’ve been found guilty of charges including insulting the king and plotting against the state. In Mexico, Kenia Hernández, leader of the Zapata Vive peasant movement that protects land rights, is serving a ten-and-a-half-year sentence on fabricated robbery with violence charges.

In Uganda, authorities arrested 11 activists in 2025 for protesting against the construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. In Peru, police used teargas and non-lethal weapons against people blocking a road in protest against a mine. An Indonesian court jailed 11 Indigenous community members for obstructing nickel mining. In January, police raided the home of Harjeet Singh, one of India’s most prominent environmental activists and a vocal campaigner for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. In Chile, where the government has weakened environmental laws, Indigenous women activists are experiencing intimidation, judicial harassment and violent attacks for opposing large-scale projects.

The UN resolution makes clear that criminalisation and violence are incompatible with states’ obligations, and everyone has a part to play in climate action. It calls on states to ‘ensure the full, meaningful and equal participation of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, people of African descent, women and girls, children and youth, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations in decision-making on climate action’.

States that backed the resolution are attacking the people it demands they work with. They can’t meet their climate obligations unless they stop repressing civil society. The resolution should give fresh impetus to civil society’s calls to replace repression with partnership.

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