TIMING THE ENVIRONMENT IN INTERNATIONAL LAW

This piece explores how international courts use “time” to define legal responsibility for climate change. It compares the ICJ, ITLOS, and Inter-American Court advisory opinions:

• ICJ sets the legal start of climate change around 1968, avoiding deeper historical causes like colonialism, framing climate change as a shared contemporary responsibility.
• ITLOS focuses on post-1988 developments, treating climate change within the existing law of the sea.
• The Inter-American Court dates climate harm back to 1750, framing it as a current emergency tied to structural injustice, calling for transformative remedies.

The author argues that these different temporal framings reflect how each legal regime conceptualizes climate responsibility and could lead to fragmented legal obligations. The article also reflects on the limits of law when facing the vastness of the climate crisis.