POLICY AND PRACTICE REVIEWS article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Pollution
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1640148
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Marine Environmental Protection: Challenges, Solutions and Perspectives Volume IIView all 37 articles
Judicialization and Legal Implications of International Maritime Governance in the Context of Climate Change: Insights from ITLOS Advisory Opinion No. 31
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zhejiang University Guanghua Law School, Hangzhou, China
- 2Zhejiang Contemporary Institute of Ocean Law and Governance, Hangzhou, China
- 3Law School, Shandong University, Qingdao, China
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Advisory Opinion in the ITLOS Case No. 31 represents the first climate change-related advisory proceeding brought before an international judicial body. It addresses key legal issues, including the advisory jurisdiction of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (hereinafter referred to as the "ITLOS") as a full court, the legal characterization of greenhouse gas emissions, and the relationship between the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereinafter referred to as the "UNCLOS") and the international climate change legal regime. This paper examines how the ITLOS established its advisory jurisdiction by relying on the doctrine of "necessity inference" and subsequently applied systemic interpretation as an interpretive method to bring greenhouse gas emissions within the scope of "marine pollution" under Article 1(1)(4) of UNCLOS. It further analyzes how, for the first time, theChange and other environmental treaties to address legal gaps in the law of the sea regarding climate change and to promote greater coherence within the international legal framework. This study argues that the advisory opinion reflects a broader trend toward the judicialization of global climate governance by international adjudicative bodies and enhances the applicability of UNCLOS in the context of global environmental governance. However, it remains essential to maintain a balance between the expansion of jurisdictional powers of international adjudicative bodies and the legal obligations of States Parties.
Keywords: ITLOS Case No. 31, Climate Change, UNCLOS, International Adjudicative Body, legal implications
Received: 03 Jun 2025; Accepted: 06 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 QIU, Wu and Tai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Tsung Han Tai, Law School, Shandong University, Qingdao, China
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