In 2026, IGSD updated its compendium of key climate jurisprudence to reflect the monumental developments represented by the 2025 climate Advisory Opinions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice. Summaries and analyses of these opinions can now be found in Annex 2 of the document. The compendium now covers all 3 climate advisory opinions from major international courts and tribunals; the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the ICJ.
IGSD’s original jurisprudence compendium of key climate cases, published in June 2025, analyzed 28 climate cases from 21 jurisdictions worldwide.
These cases were selected to highlight the following important themes in global climate change jurisprudence.
- Supervision and accountability of state and non-state actors in addressing climate change
- Use and importance of climate science
- Human rights and climate change
- States’ obligations under international treaties to address climate change
- Judicial development and evolution of legal principles to address climate change
- Access to justice and legal standing to bring climate cases
Portuguese translation of the original compendium is available here.
Spanish translation of the original compendium is available here.
Portuguese and Spanish translations of Annex 2, incorporating analysis of the ICJ and Inter-American Advisory Opinions on climate, are forthcoming.
This version includes the 18 September 2025 Concurring and Partially Dissenting Opinions in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency, as well as recent judicial decisions discussing the three Advisory Opinions.
It also includes additional commentary on the Opinions, as well as expanded Questions and Discussion.
Legal Status of Advisory Opinions, and Domestic Reception
This memorandum was prepared following the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights (OC-32/25). It examines States’ positions on the doctrine of conventionality control and the binding effect of advisory opinions, both of which are critical to understanding the Opinion’s potential implementation within domestic systems across the Latin American and Caribbean region.
Part One introduces the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ doctrine of conventionality control.
Part Two provides a concise review of how Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru have received the doctrine of conventionality control—that is, whether by embracing it, rejecting it, or demonstrating a mixed response.
This deep-dive report on waste management presents a comprehensive analysis of India’s landfill sector, focusing on the critical intersection of waste, climate change, and public health through the lens of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs). India’s rapidly growing waste generation, coupled with gaps in scientific disposal, has led to widespread reliance on landfills and dumpsites that emit significant quantities of methane (CH4), a potent SLCP with a global warming potential (GWP20) of 84 times as compare to that of carbon dioxide (CO2) over a period of 20 years. These emissions not only exacerbate climate change but also contribute to local air pollution and public health hazards.
The report explores integrated solutions to address landfill methane emissions and other SLCPs from the waste sector. It examines policy frameworks, behavioral drivers, and technologies that can transform waste management practices—from improved segregation and recycling to bio-mining of legacy waste and deployment of innovative biogas technologies.
The report is authored by Gateway Research and the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) with support from IORA Ecological Solutions.
The spread of false or misleading information about climate change is a serious challenge which has already hindered our collective response to the climate emergency. As climate disinformation continues to circulate, its obfuscation of the hard scientific reality of climate change further undermines efforts to act on the necessary scale, with the necessary urgency, to pull us back from the brink of disaster. Deliberate campaigns to sow doubt about the facts underlying the climate emergency have been exposed by various sources (two of many examples are the 2015 investigative journalism series on Exxon from Inside Climate News, and the work of environmental journalist Amy Westervelt), and mirror the tactics employed by the tobacco industry to downplay the carcinogenic effects of cigarette smoking in the 20th century. Climate misinformation and disinformation is too often reproduced by public officials and world leaders, further undercutting public support for ambitious climate policy. It is therefore of the utmost importance that governments adequately address this problem by promoting widespread understanding of the reality of our climate crisis.
This Litigation Note from IGSD assesses how the topic of climate disinformation is addressed within the three recent advisory opinions on States’ international law obligations to address climate change (from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (2024), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2025), and the International Court of Justice (2025)). It is intended to provide a guide for advocates and litigators who wish to better understand the advisory opinions’ takeaways on this topic. The Litigation Note includes an annex listing all of the State obligations identified in Section C.3 of the Inter-American Court’s Advisory Opinion, spanning not only measures to counter disinformation, but also obligations to produce and disseminate accurate climate information.
This Primer concentrates on methane mitigation opportunities available within the fossil fuel sector. It establishes an understanding of the urgent need to cut methane emissions and of how the fossil fuel sector is an important source of human-driven methane emissions. Within this sector, there are available methane mitigation technologies and tried-and-tested policies, which are seen and advocated in national and international efforts. Together, the need, the available solutions, and the growing consensus and ambition point toward a binding international agreement on methane emissions.
A Practical Guide for Developing Countries
National Plans for Lifecycle Refrigerant Management: A Practical Guide for Developing Countries provides a structured approach to help governments translate national inventories of ozone-depleting substances (ODS) and hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) banks into practical and costed National Action Plans (NAPs). The Guide supports Article 5 Parties in preventing emissions from existing refrigerant banks while aligning national actions with obligations under the Montreal Protocol and its Kigali Amendment. By promoting the recovery, recycling, reclamation, and environmentally sound disposal of refrigerants already in circulation, the Guide highlights the significant ozone and climate benefits that can be achieved through effective lifecycle management.
The Guide is intended as a practical resource for national ozone units (NOUs), environmental ministries and implementing agencies responsible for managing refrigerants throughout their lifecycle.
This publication was developed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in collaboration with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC).
This report presents a comprehensive emission inventory of Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs) and other non-CO₂ pollutants for the state of Himachal Pradesh, using 2019 as the baseline year. It underscores the urgent need to strengthen focus on non-CO₂ pollutants—particularly SLCPs such as CH₄, BC, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and tropospheric O₃, to mitigate near-term climate impacts, while sustaining long-term momentum on CO₂ mitigation.
Adopting a holistic mitigation strategy, the report analyzes projected trends in SLCP emissions and other non-CO₂ pollutants under a Business-As-Usual scenario through 2047, alongside a set of policy-driven alternative scenarios designed to achieve deeper emission reductions across key sectors.
This study assesses the extent of environmental dumping of new room air conditioners (room ACs) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and explores this practice’s linkages to cooling access and affordability there. It also examines the current state of the room AC market and energy efficiency policies in the region. Covering 11 countries (Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay), the analysis relies on room AC data from 2023 and 2025.
The IGSD Resource Guide on Preventing the Dumping of Inefficient Cooling Equipment provides information and resources for government representatives and their advisors, researchers, academics, non-profit, philanthropic and other nongovernmental organizations, and other citizens to understand the practice of environmentally harmful dumping of new but energy-inefficient cooling equipment that uses high global-warming-potential refrigerants. The Resource Guide also provides insights for those working in other product areas, such as heavy-duty vehicles, involving environmentally harmful product dumping in vulnerable developing countries.
