A Corporate Accountability Turn In International Climate Litigation

Introduction

Corporations are among the most significant emitters of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG), which are responsible for what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) described in its 2025 Advisory Opinion as ‘the urgent and existential threat posed by climate change’ (para. 73). Domestic corporate laws are increasingly imposing climate-related requirements on companies—such as the mandatory climate risk disclosure laws enacted in a number of jurisdictions—and these legislative developments have been paralleled by a rise in climate litigation targeting corporate and financial sector actors. Developments in climate attribution science are also strengthening understanding of the link between the emissions of particular corporate polluters—such as major fossil fuel producing companies—and climate-related harms like sea level rise or heatwaves, paving the way for future claims to hold these companies liable for climate damage. Yet broader accountability for corporate emitting activities has been difficult to secure, particularly where companies operate across nation state borders or have global value chains. The conventional position in international law (the usual forum for regulating activities with transnational impacts) is that international law does not matter for corporations other than through the medium of state regulation.

However, recent developments in international law, found in a series of climate-related advisory opinions issued by international courts and tribunals in 2024 and 2025, may signal greater global corporate accountability for climate harms, mediated through judicial interpretations of the international obligations regarding climate change that apply to nation states. (For the full analysis see Jacqueline Peel, ‘A Corporate Accountability Turn in International Climate Litigation’, forthcoming Lewis & Clark Law Review (2026), available here.)

Corporate Accountability in International Advisory Opinions

It is fair to say that international climate litigation was not a well-established phenomenon until recently, with the vast majority of climate litigation activity concentrated in domestic courts. However, we are now experiencing a particularly productive period for international climate jurisprudence, with three major advisory opinions on different aspects of states’ international climate obligations issued in the last two years by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) (focusing on marine pollution caused by GHG pollution and obligations under the law of the sea), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) (discussing states’ human rights obligations to address climate harms) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) (examining the international law obligations and responsibilities of states respecting climate change). 

In all three opinions, the international courts and tribunals concerned engaged with the relevance of climate-related obligations under international law to the regulation of the emissions-generating conduct of private actors, such as business entities. Three decisions might not seem sufficient to preface a corporate accountability ‘turn,’ particularly given the formally non-binding legal status of advisory opinions and states’ variable acceptance of international judicial rulings. However, the wide-ranging nature of these advisory opinions, the degree of coherence between them, and their singling out of private and corporate actors for comment against the backdrop of rulings directed to state obligations provides at least an arguable counterpoint.

As advisory opinions directed, in each case, to questions of state obligations to address climate change, the particular focus of the ICJ, IACtHR and ITLOS on the regulation of private activities constituted a ‘golden thread’ weaving through each opinion. The ICJ, for instance, signalled its attentiveness to the contributions of private entities to climate change at the very outset of its opinion when it held that the scope of its inquiry must encompass both actions or omissions of states, ‘and of non-State actors within [states’] jurisdiction or effective control, that result in the climate system and other parts of the environment being adversely affected by anthropogenic GHG emissions’ (para. 95). It went on to make several findings tying the adequacy of a state’s measures taken to fulfil international climate obligations to the comprehensiveness of its domestic regulation of private actors’ climate-impacting activities (e.g. para. 282). 

These ideas were echoed—and in some cases expanded on—by the other international advisory opinions. Indeed, the IACtHR went considerably further than the other two international judicial bodies in fleshing out the nature of states’ obligations under regional inter-American treaties with respect to the climate-related activities of companies that may otherwise give rise to human rights violations (e.g. para. 347), in line with its view that ‘business enterprises are called on to play an essential role in addressing the climate emergency’ (para. 345). Overall, the ICJ and other international advisory opinions consolidate a position that states are internationally legally obliged to regulate, monitor and supervise the climate-impacting activities of private actors under their jurisdiction or control, for example, by ensuring that their activities are included in environmental impact assessments, are subject to regulation to prevent environmental and other harms as a result of anthropogenic GHG emissions, and are a focus of states’ compliance and enforcement efforts.

Implications of a Corporate Accountability Turn

What might be the implications of a shift to questions of corporate accountability in international climate cases such as the three advisory opinions? 

One consequence is potentially to broaden the field of corporate accountability scholarship to consider the role of international law and international decisions alongside domestic corporate law requirements. Equally, international lawyers—conventionally focused on states—may need to engage more with corporate conduct and the regulatory measures that shape it.

At a practical level, the international advisory opinions in concert help to establish a new standard for states’ regulatory due diligence as it applies to corporate actors—one which is ‘stringent’ when it comes to overseeing the potential for corporate emitting activities to cause climate harms.

This may potentially lead to more international litigation against states which take inadequate measures to appraise and regulate projects of corporate emitters. Also likely—and indeed already happening—is the initiation of transnational claims against companies by actors seeking accountability for climate-related damage. A claim filed on 9 December 2025 by survivors of Typhoon Odette against Shell in the courts of the United Kingdom could presage a new wave of litigation against companies seeking compensation for past climate damage caused by their emissions. If that comes to pass it may pave the way for the development of solutions to one of the most complex issues that has confronted climate law and climate litigation: the liability of large emitting actors for the loss and damage caused by climate change. Undoubtedly, we are only at the beginning of a turning of the tide in this regard with difficult seas still to navigate on questions of proof of causation of harm. Nevertheless, the advisory opinions provide compass settings for a new direction of travel, towards the possibility of greater international responsibility and domestic liability for the climate harms caused by the activities of major corporate emitters.

The author’s article is available here.

Jacqueline Peel is a Professor of Law at Melbourne Law School.