The Inter-American Court of Human Rights rules on the accountability of companies for emissions causing harm to climate change and human rights

As we embark on work under my new Laureate Program on Global Corporate Climate Accountability, some of the most interesting aspects of last week's 'historic' Inter-American Court of Human Rights Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency - from my perspective - concern what the court had to say on corporate greenhouse gas emissions.

Judge Nancy Hernandez reads the advisory opinion of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights on climate change, during a public hearing at the court's headquarters in Costa Rica. (Photo: Inter-American Court on Human Rights)

Companies often fall through the cracks of international law, which focuses on the accountability of nations and their governments. However, in its opinion (paras. 345ff), the Court set some important parameters for how national governments should be regulating companies and corporate greenhouse gas emissions to minimise climate damage and to safeguard human rights. These include:

• Recognising that not just states but also companies have obligations with respect to climate change and its impact on human rights.

• Finding states have a duty to establish, and ensure proper implementation of, regulation of companies to so as to prevent corporate activities causing or contributing to human rights violations through climate damage.

• Finding such regulation should include:

  i) obligations for companies to conduct human rights and climate change due diligence along their entire value chains;

  (ii) requirements for disclosure of value chain greenhouse gas emissions, by both private and state-owned companies;

  (iii) requirements for companies to take measures to reduce such emissions, and to address their contribution to climate and climate mitigation goals, throughout their operations; and

  (iv) adoption a set of standards to discourage greenwashing and undue influence by companies in the political and regulatory sphere in this area, and to support the actions of human rights defenders.

• Finding the climate and rights due diligence processes adopted should be appropriate to the size, sector and operating context of the company and cover all of its activities, including domestic and international supply chains, but can be differentiated depending on the nature of the activity and the risk to human rights that is posed e.g. stricter duties would be imposed on companies with higher greenhouse emissions in line with the polluter pays principle, including companies involved in the exploration, extraction, transport and processing of fossil fuels, cement manufacturing, agro-industrial activities.

While the Court's Advisory Opinion speaks to the obligations of countries within the Organisation of American States (OAS), the wide-ranging nature of the findings, the Court's well-reasoned conclusions and the broader applicability of climate and human rights obligations beyond the OAS context will make this decision an important, if not authoritative, one in understanding the contours of global corporate accountability for climate harms.