New Advisory Opinion Serves as Key Legal Tool for Advancing Climate Action
Nancy Tapias Torrado, the newest member of the Waterloo Climate Institute, is part of a team of researchers that contributed to the “Advisory Opinion on Climate Emergency and Human Rights” of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – a landmark decision on the obligations of States in the face of the climate emergency.
While at McGill University as a Visiting Fellow and at Concordia University as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Social Justice Centre (2023-2024), Nancy and her team prepared an amicus curiae (in Spanish), offering their legal perspective and expert analysis to help inform the Advisory Opinion. They submitted their legal brief in October 2023. The Court subsequently invited them to present their arguments, findings, and recommendations before the judges in the largest public hearing in the history of the Court.
They attended the hearing that was held in the heart of the Amazon -Manaus, Brazil- in May 2024. It was divided into three sessions, brought together over 150 delegations offering scientific, ancestral, and legal testimony – including those from Nancy’s team. These sessions were instrumental in informing the Court’s 2025 Advisory Opinion, published on July 3, 2025. During her intervention in the hearing, Nancy highlighted the “extraordinary efforts” of Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendant communities protecting ancestral territories. She emphasized their “crucial contributions” in advancing climate actions, even in the face of extreme violence, structural racism, inequality and direct attacks.
Their ancestral practices, actions of mobilization, protection, and resistance have, in many cases, allowed their territories to be preserved. These territories are home to particularly rich and biodiverse fragile ecosystems that are fundamental to the sustainability of the world and addressing the serious impacts of the climate emergency.
For Nancy, the Advisory Opinion “…is a crucial legal advancement that clarifies the scope of the States’ obligations to address the climate emergency within a human rights framework. It -among others- recognizes the human right to a healthy climate as ‘an independent right – derived from the right to a healthy environment’.” For her, the Advisory Opinion makes many important contributions.
…it is also very important that the Advisory Opinion stresses the essential work of environmental defenders and the obligation to protect them, explicitly including Indigenous peoples and Indigenous women. Also, in an evolutionary interpretation, it recognizes Indigenous knowledge as part of the ‘right to science’ and the fundamental role of Indigenous women in preserving and transmitting traditional knowledge.
Learn more about the Advisory Opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Also, in July 2025, the International Court of Justice gave its Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change.
Previously, in May 2024, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea delivered its Advisory Opinion on the same matter.
