인권 기반 기후소송의 규범적 진화: 국제사법재판소(ICJ) 2025 기후변화 권고적 의견에 대한 국제인권법적 함의

This paper examines the International Court of Justice's landmark Advisory Opinion of July 23, 2025, through the lens of international human rights law, while tracing the jurisprudential trajectory of rights-based climate litigation. The Opinion crystallizes years of progressive legal development, as domestic courts and regional tribunals have increasingly framed climate action as a matter of fundamental rights protection rather than mere environmental policy. The Court confirmed that climate change threatens basic human rights, and emphasized states' positive obligations to protect current and future generations from these threats. Significantly, the ICJ recognized the “right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment” as a fundamental human right and established that climate change treaties and international human rights law should be applied in a complementary manner. The Court also articulated important legal standards, such as applying the principle of non-refoulement to climate refugees and adopting a more flexible approach to causation in climate harm cases. These international legal standards, together with the 2024 Korean Constitutional Court's decision on the incompatibility with the Constitution of insufficient climate measures, highlight the importance of incorporating human rights protection as a central element in Korea's climate policy development and legislative reform.