Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights marks a legal milestone in the evolution of international environmental law, integrating climate change into the corpus iuris of human rights. However—and I regret having to burst the bubble—from a strictly technical, institutional, and operational perspective, it must be stated that the effective implementation of the measures proposed in the opinion is highly questionable. This critique does not stem from any objection to the spirit or ethical pertinence of the text, but rather from an analysis of its contradictions, practical absences, and structural asymmetries between States.

As I always say, to perfect something, one must first look it straight in the eye. So let’s do that.

Discrepancy Between Normative Scope and Available Institutional Architecture
The Inter-American Court has laid out ambitious standards for States, including the obligation to reduce emissions, ensure access to information, protect environmental defenders, and recognize the human right to a healthy climate. However, none of these obligations are subject to a binding monitoring or enforcement system within the Inter-American framework. The Advisory Opinion lacks coercive effect and falls within a soft law logic. This means that, although it may serve as an interpretative framework, its implementation depends entirely on the political will of each State, many of which lack the technical capacities, financial resources, or legal structures required.

Even if a country adopts the required measures, the effectiveness of its efforts may be nullified by the actions or inactions of more polluting States. This disconnection between legal responsibility and real-world effectiveness undermines the principle of environmental non-regression and puts pressure on the principle of intergenerational justice that the very ruling claims to uphold.

Ambiguity and Practical Challenges of the “Human Right to a Healthy Climate”
Recognizing a human right to a healthy climate, while ethically progressive, presents serious operational challenges. Unlike the right to a healthy environment—which can be defended through concrete parameters such as air quality, water levels, or biodiversity—climate is a global construct, multicausal, nonlinear, and not legally localizable.

Who, for instance, is liable for a worsened drought in Central America if its root causes are linked to historic emissions from Asia or the United States? Which State can be held accountable for upholding the “right to a healthy climate”? As currently formulated, the concept lacks clear legal tools for enforceability or direct reparation, and its application in climate litigation may generate false expectations or divert resources into symbolically powerful but legally fragile lawsuits.

Problematic Assumptions About States’ Differentiated Capacities
Although the Court invokes the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” (CBDR), central to international climate law, it fails to develop any technical or political mechanism to operationalize this principle within the Inter-American system. The result is that countries such as Haiti, Honduras, or Bolivia are called upon to meet similar commitments—as supposedly adapted to their capacities—as States with far greater institutional strength and lower climate vulnerability.

This equalization of obligations to “adopt domestic measures,” “mitigate,” “regulate,” and “adapt” overlooks a fundamental fact: many States under the jurisdiction of the Court are structurally locked into extractive economies, and cannot simply “regulate private actors” without jeopardizing the very foundation of their fiscal revenue.

In practice, these States are victims of a global economic model that the Opinion neither problematizes nor structurally confronts. While the Court acknowledges anthropogenic causes and inequality, it does not analyze or suggest pathways to address the architecture of international trade, carbon investment flows, bilateral investment treaties, or the power of transnational corporations that block climate regulations through investor-state arbitration mechanisms.

Omission of the Military and Geopolitical Dimension of Climate Change
The Advisory Opinion commits a critical omission by failing to consider the role of military-industrial complexes as climate agents. Armed forces in certain countries—especially those outside Latin America but with strategic presence in the region—are among the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, protected by exemption clauses in treaties such as the Paris Agreement.

The failure to mention the climate impact of foreign military bases, extractive operations shielded by military treaties, or the use of high-energy surveillance technologies reveals a diplomatic bias that limits the transformative potential of the document. If the States under the Court’s jurisdiction do not hold full sovereignty over their resources or strategic environmental decisions due to geopolitical constraints, then the expectation of full State responsibility becomes, in itself, a legally naïve construct.

The Paradox of Demanding Resilience Without Guaranteeing Redistribution
Finally, the Court states that countries must act “with a perspective of resilience.” However, resilience without redistribution reproduces the status quo. No sustainable climate adaptation model can be viable unless climate finance systems—whether public, multilateral, or private—are democratized and decentralized.

The measures proposed by the Court implicitly assume that resilience can be achieved through legal reform, citizen participation, and political will. But in the absence of material transformations in tax systems, core-periphery relations, and global trade rules, resilience becomes a technical slogan rather than a feasible outcome.

Conclusion

Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 is a document of immense symbolic, normative, and pedagogical value. However, from a technical-scientific and international governance standpoint, its content reveals structural limits that compromise its real-world viability. It is not enough to declare rights without questioning the global framework that obstructs their fulfillment. The challenge lies not only in the legal realm but also in the political, economic, and epistemological ones. What is at stake is not merely the recognition of rights, but the radical transformation of the systems that prevent their realization.

ANNEX – SUMMARY OF ADVISORY OPINION OC-32/25 FROM THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
On July 9, 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) issued its Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 in response to a request submitted in January 2023 by Chile and Colombia, establishing States’ obligations regarding the climate emergency from a human rights perspective. It is considered the most participatory process in the Court’s history, with over 600 actors involved and public hearings held in Barbados and Brazil.

The Court determined that the climate emergency is a scientifically proven fact, caused by human activities unequally distributed among States, and that it incrementally and disproportionately affects the most vulnerable populations. It therefore calls for urgent, effective, and coordinated State action, grounded in the principles of resilience, equity, and climate justice.

Key highlights include:

  • Recognition of the human right to a healthy climate, derived from the right to a healthy environment.
  • States’ obligations to reduce emissions, regulate private actors, update domestic legislation, and pursue sustainable development.
  • Declaration of the prohibition against massive and irreversible environmental harm as a jus cogens norm.
  • Connection of the climate crisis with fundamental rights such as life, health, water, food, work, education, and freedom of movement.
  • Special protection for individuals and communities structurally and intersectionally vulnerable to climate impacts.
  • Defense of the role of environmental defenders, indigenous and local knowledge systems, and the rights to participation, information, and environmental justice.
  • Reinforcement of the duty for States to adopt inclusive and democratic decisions in addressing the climate crisis.

The Opinion includes concurring and dissenting opinions, the full texts of which will be released in August 2025. It sets a regional and global legal precedent by elevating the climate crisis to the status of a human rights and intergenerational justice issue.