PIL Discussion Group: Bringing Climate Change before the ICJ: Process, Outcome and Pure Conjecture
Professor Jorge E. Viñuales, University of Cambridge
Notes & Changes
- Please note that in-person attendance is now provisionally full, and we are operating on a waitlist basis. I appreciate your kind understanding.
For this event only, I draw your attention to two matters:
First, the first seminar, and for this seminar only for this term, will take place in the Wharton Room, instead of the Old Library. A sandwich lunch will be provided in the Hovenden Room, instead of the Wharton Room from 12.15 pm and onwards.
Second, I’m sorry to inform you that the venue has a limited capacity, accommodating approximately 40 people. May I kindly ask that you first register if you plan to participate in person, and only register if you’re certain of attending. I’ll send an email earlier that week (i.e. the week of the seminar) to confirm whether you’d be able to participate in the event in person.
Please contact me if you need to cancel your registration, only if you registered to attend in person, so that I can offer the place to others who have expressed interest in attending the event. Please let me know if you require an earlier confirmation to schedule your trip in advance, if you’re attending outside of Oxford. Participation will be determined on a first-come, first-served basis when registration opens on Monday, 6 October 2025, at 9.00 a.m. British Standard Time.
If you specify that you will join online, you will be sent a Teams link before the event. I’ll aim to send the online link once the form closes on Wednesday (i.e., 15 October) at midday. A separate email will be circulated to confirm your participation in person. Email access will be limited on the day of the event, as well as after the form closes. I kindly request that you communicate and register in advance.
Abstract
On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice delivered a landmark advisory opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of climate change. This lecture explores the strategy, process, outcome and potential impact of the advisory opinion seen ‘from the cockpit’. It discusses the many close calls, scientific challenges, political hurdles, coordination and positioning issues that had to be overcome as well as the deep fault-lines underpinning the request, the pleadings and the opinion.
Speaker
Professor Jorge E. Viñuales holds the Harold Samuel Chair of Law and Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge, where he founded the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG). He is also a Research Professor of International Law at LUISS, Rome, a Member of the Institut de Droit International, the Chairman of the Compliance Committee of the UNECE/WHO-Europe Protocol on Water and Health, a member of the Sanctions Committee of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a member of the Panel of Arbitrators of ICSID and the Shenzhen International Arbitration Centre (SCIA), the co-General Editor of the ICSID Reports, the General-Editor of the Cambridge Studies on Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Governance, and the former Director-General of the Latin American Society of International Law.
Jorge has published widely in his specialty areas, including his books The International Law of Energy (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Cassese's International Law (Oxford University Press, 2020, with P. Gaeta and S. Zappala), The UN Friendly Relations Declaration at 50: An Assessment of the Fundamental Principles of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2020, editor), ICSID Reports, volumes 18 to 20 (co-ed with M. Waibel since 2019), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Law (Oxford University Press, 2019, co-ed. with E. Lees), Experiments in International Adjudication: Historical Accounts (Cambridge University Press, 2019, co-ed. with I. de la Rasilla), The Organisation of the Anthropocene: In Our Hands? (Brill, 2018), The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2015), International Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press, 2015, second edition 2018, with P.-M. Dupuy, translated into Chinese and French), The Foundations of International Investment Law (Oxford University Press, 2014, co-edited with Z. Douglas and J. Pauwelyn), Foreign Investment and the Environment in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2012, reprint 2015) and Diplomatic and Judicial Means of Dispute Settlement (Martinus Nijhoff, 2012, co-edited with L. Boisson de Chazournes and M. G. Kohen). Beyond his legal research, Jorge has published numerous interdisciplinary studies on complexity economics, integrated modelling and sustainability policy in co-authorship with colleagues from C-EENRG and elsewhere. This work has appeared in journals such as The Lancet, Nature Climate Change, Nature Energy, Global Environmental Change, etc.
Jorge has a wide portfolio of practice in transactional, pre-litigation and litigation matters. His experience spans inter-State, investment and commercial proceedings, serving as arbitrator, expert, counsel, co-counsel, policy advisor and, earlier in his career, secretary of arbitration tribunals. From 2019 until 2025, he served as counsel for Republic of Vanuatu in its high-profile initiative to seek an advisory opinion on climate change from the ICJ.
A dual Swiss/Argentine national, Jorge was educated in France (Doctorat - Sciences Po, Paris), the United States (LL.M. - Harvard Law School), Switzerland (Licence and Diplôme d’études approfondies in international relations - HEI; liz jur – Universität Freiburg; Licence and Diplôme d’études approfondies in political science – Université de Genève), and Argentina (Abogado – UNICEN). He qualified as an attorney in Buenos Aires and New York, and served as a member of the foreign lawyers section of the Geneva Bar.
His native language is Spanish and he is fluent in English, French and Italian.