1 The Climate Emergency and Human Rights, Advisory Opinion OC-30/23, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) No. 30 (July 3, 2025).

2 Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change & the Environment, A Turning Point for Climate Justice: First Reflections on the Inter-American Court’s Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights, at 12:48 (July 4, 2025), at https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/events/a-turning-point-for-climate-justice-first-reflections-on-the-inter-american-courts-advisory-opinion-on-the-climate-emergency-and-human-rights.

3 Id. at 9:09.

4 See also Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change & the Environment, Leveraging the Inter-American Court Advisory Opinion: Strategic Litigation for Climate Accountability (July 4, 2025), at https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/events/leveraging-the-inter-american-court-advisory-opinion-strategic-litigation-for-climate-accountability-webinar-2.

5 Jorge Contesse, Settling Human Rights Violations, 60 Harv. Int’l L.J. 317 (2019) (Contesse uses the term “juriscentric” to critique the emphasis on courts in human rights scholarship. The idea here is the same, but the term court-centric seems more direct.).

6 But see Alexandra Huneeus & Mikael Rask Madsen, Between Universalism and Regional Law and Politics: A Comparative History of the American, European, and African Human Rights Systems, 16 Int’l J. Const. L. 136 (2018), at https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moy011; Dinah Shelton & Paolo G. Carozza, Regional Protection of Human Rights (2d ed. 2013); Par Engstrom, Effectiveness of International and Regional Human Rights Regimes, in The International Studies Encyclopedia (Robert A. Denemark ed., 2010); Christof Heyns, David Padilla & Leo Zwaak, A Schematic Comparison of Regional Human Rights Systems: An Update, 4 Sur: Int’l J. Hum. Rts. 160 (2006); Burns H. Weston, Robin Ann Lukes & Kelly M. Hnatt, Regional Human Rights Regimes: A Comparison and Appraisal, 20 Vand. J. Transnat’l L. 585 (1987).

7 The Economic Community of West African States and the East African Community. The South African Development Community (SADC) court’s one-judgment foray into human rights is also discussed.

8 In this work, the authors fold the notion of trustee courts into a modified P-A theory framework. Note however, that prior work draws a sharp distinction between agents and trustees as a way to show that courts become authoritative interpreters beyond member state control in the traditional P-A dynamic. See, e.g., Karen J. Alter, Agents or Trustees? International Courts in their Political Context, 14 Eur. J. Int’l Rel. 33 (2008); Manfred Elsig & Mark A. Pollack, Agents, Trustees, and International Courts: The Politics of Judicial Appointment at the World Trade Organization Appellate Body, 20 Eur. J. Int’l Rel. 391 (2014).

9 The arguments in this book do not add to the debate between Stone Sweet, on the one hand, and Laurence Helfer and Eriv Voeten, on the other, over whether ECHR jurisprudence shows signs of deference to state preferences in LGBTQ+ cases. See Laurence R. Helfer & Erik Voeten, Walking Back Dissents on the European Court of Human Rights: A Rejoinder to Alec Stone Sweet, Wayne Sandholtz and Mads Andenas, 32 Eur. J. Int’l L. 907 (2021); see also Mikael Rask Madsen, Rebalancing European Human Rights: Has the Brighton Declaration Engendered a New Deal on Human Rights in Europe?, J. Int’l Dispute Settlement 199 (2017).

10 See, e.g., Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos & Wayne Sandholtz, Sources of Resilience of International Human Rights Courts: The Case of the Inter-American System, 47 L. & Soc. Inquiry 95, 114 (2022) (“It is fair to assume that the stronger the presence of CSOs that work with the IASyHR across the region, and the stronger the transnational ties between them, the greater the resilience of the IASyHR.”).

11 See, e.g., Karen J. Alter, The New Terrain Of International Law: Courts, Politics, Rights (2014); Markus Thiel, European Civil Society And Human Rights Advocacy (2017); Rachel A. Cichowski, Civil Society and the European Court of Human Rights, in The European Court of Human Rights Between Law and Politics 77 (Jonas Christoffersen & Mikael Rask Madsen eds., 2011); Ximena Soley & Silvia Steininger, Parting Ways or Lashing Back? Withdrawals, Backlash and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 14 Int’l J. L. Context 237 (2018); Ximena Soley, The Crucial Role of Human Rights NGOs in the Inter-American System, 113 AJIL Unbound 355 (2019); Geneviève Lessard, Civil Society Interactions Within the Inter-American Institutional Framework: Two Case-Studies in Promoting the Strengthening of the Regional Human Rights System, 2011 Rev. québ. dr. int’l 165 (2011); Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos & Wayne Sandholtz, supra note 10; Marcia Nina Bernardes, Inter-American Human Rights System as a Transnational Public Sphere: Legal and Political Aspects of the Implementation of International Decisions, 15 Sur – Int’l J. Hum. Rts. 131 (2011); Nelson Camilo Sánchez, Lessons for Civil Society Organizations on Reforming International Human Rights Systems, Dejusticia (Aug. 14, 2019), at https://www.dejusticia.org/learning-collaborative/lessons-for-civil-society-organizations; Claude E. Welch Jr., Protecting Human Rights in Africa: Strategies and Roles of Non-governmental Organizations (1995); Claude E. Welch, Jr., NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance (2000). For a review of critiques of delegation theory in this context, see Mark A. Pollack, Principal-Agent Analysis and International Delegation: Red Herrings, Theoretical Clarifications and Empirical Disputes (Bruges Political Research Paper No. 2, Feb. 2007), available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=1011324; Gaëtan Cliquennois, Simon Chaptel & Brice Champetier, How Conservative Groups Fight Liberal Values and Try To “Moralize” The European Court of Human Rights, 20 Int’l J. L. Context 360 (2024).

12 Republic of Colombia: Presidential Re-election Without Term Limits in the Context of the Inter-American Human Rights System, Advisory Opinion OC-28/21, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) No. 28 (June 7, 2021).

13 In The Matter of a Request by the Pan African Lawyers Union (Palu) for an Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States with Respect to the Climate Change Crisis (May 2, 2025), at https://www.african-court.org/cpmt/details-advisory/0012025.

14 Ellen Ioanes, How 2,000 Elderly Swiss Women Won a Landmark Climate Case, Vox (Apr. 9, 2024), at https://www.vox.com/world-politics/24125621/switzerland-echr-climate-change-human-rights-court.

15 Corte IDH, Opinion Consultiva 32 de 2025: Emergencia Climática Derechos Humanos, at https://corteidh.or.cr/tablas/OC-32-2025/#scroll-8.

16 See Advisory Opinion on Human Rights and the Climate Emergency, supra note 1, paras. 287–94.

17 E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act 263, 266 (1975) (discussing relative autonomy).

18 Ingrid Brunk, International Law in the Post-Human Rights Era, 96 Texas L. Rev. 279 (2017).

19 Socio-legal scholars have shown that social movements become more conservative when they turn to litigation. See, e.g., Myra Marx Ferree, Resonance and Radicalism: Feminist Framing in the Abortion Debates of the United States and Germany, 109 Am. J. Soc. 304 (2003) (showing how lawyers tend to steer social movements away from their more radical claims).