Climate Noncompliance, International Crime, and the ICJ: The Overlooked Lens of Global Energy Inequality

By Diksha Singh, She is a third-year law student at the National Law Institute University, Bhopal

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Introduction

The climate crisis is often framed as a legal struggle over international obligations, criminal accountability and the evolving roles of courts. Between these debates there is one crucial dimension i.e., how international climate law, and particularly climate noncompliance, interacts with persistent global energy inequality and developmental justice. As the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issues its much-anticipated advisory opinion on climate change, there is a rare opportunity still largely unexplored in mainstream discourse to interrogate climate obligations not just through punitive but redistributive and equity-centred lenses. This piece argues that climate noncompliance must be redefined not solely in punitive terms but through distributive energy justice, positioning the ICJ advisory opinion as a turning point. Examining the legal implications of climate noncompliance against the background of energy access and global distributive justice reveals missed opportunities and signals new paths for meaningful, sustainable accountability.

From Cooperation to Equity in Climate Law

Climate treaties such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement are built around mutual commitments, reporting, and peer scrutiny. These instruments aim to encourage broad participation by emphasising support and adaptation finance over rigid sanctioning. The system’s diplomatic ethos, reluctant to punish, has allowed even repeated noncompliance to persist as a reputational issue rather than a legal, let alone criminal, infraction. Such design choices reflect an uneasy consensus imposing sanctions or criminalizing failure threatens to fracture already fragile global cooperation, especially between high- and low-emitting countries.

In this architecture, states bear obligations to mitigate emissions and support vulnerable populations, but the modalities of enforcement rely on voluntary compliance, naming and shaming, and hope that incentives outweigh costs. Critics point out that these mechanisms, while promoting inclusion, often keep poorer nations trapped in cycles of dependency, with few real levers to demand that wealthier states change course or repair harm.

Against this background, the 2025 ICJ advisory opinion represents a pivotal shift. Many states from the Global South have asked the court to clarify not only the content of climate duties but also the consequences of noncompliance, explicitly in the context of both present and future harm. Unprecedented participation by non-Western states and international organisations has brought a diversity of perspectives rarely seen in previous legal proceedings at the ICJ.

What sets this moment apart is the ICJ’s ability to move beyond a binary of blame and punishment. The advisory opinion, though technically non-binding, will strongly influence how climate law is interpreted and applied everywhere. It can help define when state conduct crosses from mere breach into wrongful or even egregious conduct in light of deep inequalities in energy access, climate vulnerability, and adaptive capacity.

Energy Poverty and the Right to Clean Energy

Over one billion people lack reliable access to electricity, and many more live with energy poverty so acute that basic needs cannot be met. The world’s highest-emitting states also tend to enjoy near-universal access to energy and have built decades of wealth on fossil fuels. In sharp contrast, much of the Global South is urged to decarbonize or face diplomatic pressure even as they struggle to provide minimal energy infrastructure to their populations.

When legal accountability for climate noncompliance is discussed, too often the discussion assumes a level playing field. In reality, energy access and the ability to adapt or mitigate are profoundly unequal.

Building on principles from existing climate treaties, the ICJ can clarify that failing to support global energy access, or undermining efforts to extend clean energy to the poorest, constitutes a dereliction of legal duty as grave as failing to mitigate domestic emissions. Such an approach aligns with emerging scholarship arguing that the right to energy is implicit in international human rights and environmental law, and directly linked to other rights such as health, housing, education, and water.

If the court defines climate obligations in terms that prioritise distributive justice and energy equality, it shifts the accountability debate away from just zoning in on punitive consequences for failing to meet emission targets. Instead, it recognises that genuine compliance must include structural reforms: richer states must finance technology transfer, invest in renewable infrastructure in the Global South, and facilitate transitions that do not leave billions behind.

Rethinking Accountability and Future Pathways

While some advocates push for the criminalization of egregious climate noncompliance often adopting the concept of “ecocide”, a redistributive approach would caution against decoupling criminal accountability from the realities of global energy injustice. The risk remains that defining climate crimes too narrowly or punitively will punish under-resourced states for adaptation failures. Without addressing their lack of access to clean energy or necessary finance, powerful states maintain leverage within the existing fossil-fuel order. Truly transformative accountability cannot emerge from criminal jurisprudence alone, it must also confront and help repair the structural conditions that leave the most vulnerable at greatest risk.

Recent advisory proceedings before the ICJ, as well as opinions by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), signal that courts are increasingly willing to read climate obligations in light of advancing science and social realities. The ICJ can lead by stating that climate diligence is measured not only in tons of carbon avoided, but in the ability to support just, inclusive economic and energy transitions. Such interpretation would operationalise the “principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” by making it a standard for what counts as due diligence, and what constitutes wrongful inaction.

If courts and arbitral bodies push for this approach, climate noncompliance is no longer seen just as failing to transcribe international norms into national law. Instead, it is the failure to coordinate, invest, and act in a way that empowers all populations to share in climate resilience and the benefits of clean energy. Not only does this give the legal framework greater bite but it also aligns the law with the transformational ambitions at the heart of climate justice movements.

The ICJ’s opinion, and the broader trend toward centring energy justice in climate law, opens the door to new forms of international agreements. States interested in forestalling criminal liability for noncompliance can champion robust, equitable, and enforceable frameworks supporting technology sharing, climate finance, and just transitions. Rather than simply criminalizing failure, future treaties could prioritise reparative, forward-looking obligations and provide for new international funds administered directly by affected communities and countries.

Energy equity becomes not just an afterthought, but a test of compliance itself. As climate politics grow more polarized, a rule of law approach that merges accountability with solidarity offers a grounding in both fairness and practicality. This paradigm can help sidestep the diplomatic logjams created by punitive forms of justice that fail to engage with history, structural exclusion, and real human need.

Conclusion

As climate treaties mature and the reach of courts like the ICJ expands, grounding debates about noncompliance and accountability in the lived reality of energy poverty and global development becomes essential. Instead of relying solely on traditional criminalization narratives, the ICJ and international legal community should articulate climate obligations that hold all states to account especially the powerful but also recognise the urgency of enabling equal access to climate solutions.

Redefining climate noncompliance through the lens of distributive energy justice transforms legal debates. It bridges punishment and prevention, rules and reality, by focusing on repairing the unequal conditions that make climate vulnerability inevitable for billions. Every legal step in this direction moves the world closer towards accountability with dignity, justice with effectiveness, and compliance that truly leaves no one behind.