🍻 Selber Bier Brauen

Totale Sonnenfinsternisse gehören zu den selteneren Naturereignissen. Unsere interaktive Weltkarte zeigt Ihnen, wann und wie oft das Naturschauspiel stattfindet. Und wo Sie dafür hinreisen müssen.

Um auf dem höchsten Niveau zu bestehen, bedienen sich Mannschaften wissenschaftlicher Methoden und entlarven mit Analysetools die Taktik der Gegner.

Aus den Bergen kommt nur wenig kühlendes Schmelzwasser. Aare, Reuss und Limmat heizen sich darum zurzeit rasch auf, ebenso viele kleinere Flüsse. Das Risiko für Forellen, Äschen und andere Fischarten wächst. Derzeit wird ein Vorhersagesystem erprobt.

Drei Gastgeber, 48 Teilnehmer: Vom 11. Juni bis zum 19. Juli findet die Fussball-Weltmeisterschaft der Männer in Mexiko, Kanada und den USA statt. Einblicke in die WM in Bildern.

Fussballer beflügeln einander oder reissen sich gegenseitig in den Abgrund. Emotionen springen vom einen auf den anderen Spieler und plötzlich wird aus dem scheinbar sicheren Sieger ein Verlierer. Eine Dechiffrier-Anleitung für Zuschauer.

Editor’s Pick

von MAXIM BÖNNEMANN

Dieses Buch beginnt und endet in den Bergen von Montana. Dazwischen spannt es ein Panorama aus dem Leben dreier Freunde, das mit so viel Wucht und Zärtlichkeit erzählt wird, dass ich es tagelang nicht weglegen konnte. Im Zentrum stehen Cece, Charlie und Garett. Cece und Charlie möchten heiraten, doch kurz vor der Trauung lernen sich Cece und der depressive Garett kennen. Die Begegnung der beiden prägt die folgenden Jahrzehnte, wirft Pläne durcheinander und formt auch die nächste Generation. Puchner erzählt von Liebe und Trauer, Glück und Krankheit, Tieren und Natur – und all das mit so viel Wärme, dass man gar nicht mehr aus seinem Dream State auftauchen möchte.

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Die Woche auf dem Verfassungsblog

zusammengefasst von EVA MARIA BREDLER

Es waren bizarre Szenen: Hochgebildete (wenige) Damen und (viele) Herren mittleren Alters, mit denen es das Leben bislang wohl eher gut gemeint hat, erheben sich in feinem Zwirn im Plenum des Hohen Hauses Europas, klatschen und singen zufrieden die Parole „Send Them Back“ – halb Hooligans, halb Hochgeborene, aber von der Vielfalt anderer wollen sie verschont bleiben. So trug es sich am Mittwoch zu, als das Europäische Parlament mit den Stimmen der konservativen und rechtsextremen Fraktionen der neuen sogenannten Rückführungsverordnung zustimmte. Immerhin riefen einige Abgeordnete „Shame on You“ zurück. Abwesend waren natürlich jene, die die Verordnung betrifft – Migrant:innen aus Drittstaaten. Diese können nun gegen ihren Willen in ein Land verbracht werden, das sie weder kennen noch jemals betreten haben, und das die Verordnung in Art. 4 Abs. 3 dennoch als „Land der Rückkehr“ (country of return) definiert. Für DANA SCHMALZ (DE) ist das keine Rückführung, sondern eine Entführung.

Interessanterweise dürfen derzeit auch die feinen Abgeordneten des Europäischen Parlaments erleben, was es heißt, Bürger:in zweiter Klasse zu sein. Die USA haben ihre Exportkontrollen so verschärft, dass Nicht-Amerikaner:innen von Anthropics fortschrittlichsten KI-Modellen ausgeschlossen sind – und zwar nicht an der Grenze, sondern überall dort, wo sie sich gerade aufhalten. Wer Anthropic nutzt, sieht unten ein kleines Banner: „Claude Fable ist derzeit nicht verfügbar“. GILAD ABIRI & DIMITRY KOCHENOV (EN) erkennen darin ein beunruhigendes neues Feature der Staatsangehörigkeit: Sie entscheidet nun über den Zugang zu Produktivität und Schlüsseltechnologien – und bewacht damit die Tore einer technologischen Zukunft.

Eine düstere Vision dieser Technozukunft hat Tech-Milliardär und Palantir-CEO Alex Karp jüngst in seinem Manifest veröffentlicht. PAUL NEMITZ (DE) erklärt, was hinter den 22 Punkten steht: eine Ordnung, in der Sicherheit zum Geschäftsmodell und militärische Macht zur höchsten Tugend wird – „eine neue, gefährliche Symbiose aus militaristischem Staat und Tech-Kapital“.

Deutschland ist davon zum Glück (noch) weit entfernt. Hier sollen Gesetze noch vor digitaler Gewalt schützen, statt diese zu ermöglichen. Doch PETRA SUSSNER (DE) warnt: Der neue Gesetzentwurf der Bundesregierung verknüpfe Gewaltschutz mit weitreichenden Grundrechtseingriffen.

Auch militärisch geht es bei uns traditioneller zu. Im neuen „Pakt für den Bevölkerungsschutz“, mit dem die Bundesregierung zivile und militärische Verteidigung enger verzahnen will, sucht man das Stichwort KI vergeblich. Eine ganz andere Leerstelle entdeckt SEBASTIAN AMBROS (DE): den militärischen Schutz von Kulturgut. Er fordert Kulturoffiziere bei der Bundeswehr.

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Stellenausschreibung

An der Professur für Bürgerliches Recht, Handels-, Gesellschaftsrecht, Compliance und Nachhaltigkeit (Prof. Jan-Erik Schirmer) ist eine Stelle im Projekt „Viadrina Climate Litigation Clinic“ als Akademische*r Mitarbeiter*in (Kenn-Nummer 1104-26-01) zu besetzen. Bewerbungsschluss ist der 05.07.2026.

Unser ausführliches Stellenangebot: www.europa-uni.de/stellenangebote

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Am Mittwoch stellte die UN-Sonderberichterstatterin Irene Khan ihren Bericht zur Meinungsfreiheit in Deutschland vor – und rief Wissenschaftsinstitutionen dazu auf, die akademische Freiheit zu schützen und sichere, offene Räume für Forschung und Meinungsvielfalt zu schaffen. Die Hertie School scheint damit zu kämpfen: Sie verbietet bei ihrer anstehenden Abschlussfeier 2026 palästinensische Solidaritätssymbole und verlangt von den Studierenden, eine entsprechende Erklärung zu unterschreiben. BERNHARD KNOLL-TUDOR (EN) sieht das kritisch.

Auch die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft kämpft mit diesen Fragen, sogar vor Gericht: Durfte sie einem Anthropologen wegen dessen umstrittener Äußerungen zum 7. Oktober 2023 kündigen? Das Arbeitsgericht Halle hielt die Kündigung für rechtmäßig. Vor der Berufungsverhandlung erklärt HANNAH FRANZKI (DE), warum sie das für juristischen Unfug hält.

Kritik am Krieg in Gaza beschäftigt auch die Gerichte in Großbritannien. Nachdem der High Court das Verbot von Palestine Action für rechtswidrig erklärt hatte, hat der Court of Appeal das Urteil aufgehoben und das Verbot nun bestätigt. Für ALAN GREENE, DANIELLA LOCK & COLIN MURRAY (EN) bleibt bei dem Beurteilungsspielraum, den das Gericht dem Home Secretary einräumt, von der richterlichen Kontrolle kaum noch etwas übrig.

Wie viel von der richterlichen Kontrolle übrig bleibt, könnte auch über Simbabwes Schicksal entscheiden. Präsident Mnangagwa will die Verfassung ändern, um eine dritte Amtszeit anzutreten. Das ist in der afrikanischen Verfassungskultur nichts Neues – doch die simbabwische Verfassung hat genau deswegen spezifische Schutzvorkehrungen eingerichtet. MARKUS BÖCKENFÖRDE (EN) analysiert, ob sie halten und welche Rolle das Verfassungsgericht dabei spielt.

Vor executive overreach müssen wir uns auch in Sachsen-Anhalt fürchten. Sollte die AfD dort nach der Wahl an die Regierung kommen, muss sie niemanden entlassen, um die Verwaltung zu kontrollieren. Denn statt auf Entlassungen kann die AfD auf Einschüchterung und Verunsicherung setzen, wie DOMINIK VOGEL zeigt.

Stellt die AfD nach den Landtagswahlen im September einen Innenminister, wirft das auch für den Sicherheitsföderalismus Fragen auf: Was passiert mit dem polizeilichen Datenaustausch, wenn die AfD in Sachsen-Anhalt regiert? MARKUS THIEL (DE) erläutert, dass das Datenschutzrecht auf Einzelfälle zugeschnitten ist und beim Misstrauen gegen eine ganze Landespolizei versagt.

Auf Antrag der AfD verzichtete Ende Mai der Ilm-Kreis in Thüringen auf Fördergelder des Bundesprogramms „Demokratie leben!“. Doch auch bundesweit steht das Demokratieförderprogramm unter Druck: Bundesfamilienministerin Prien hat angekündigt, bis Jahresende mehr als 200 Demokratieprojekte auslaufen zu lassen – vor allem solche zur Vielfaltsförderung, die ihrer Ansicht nach zu sehr auf ein linksliberales Milieu abzielen. VANESSA WINTERMANTEL (DE) sieht darin ein falsches Verständnis von Demokratie und erklärt, warum Demokratie Vielfalt braucht.

Ganz im Sinne dieser demokratierelevanten Vielfalt wäre es, das Wahlrecht auch für Inländer:innen ohne deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit einzuführen. Genau das hat zuletzt die Linksfraktion im Bundestag gefordert – die Kritik folgte prompt. Viele verwiesen reflexhaft auf 30 Jahre alte BVerfG-Entscheidungen. Doch das greife zu kurz, meint TARIK TABBARA (DE), und fordert offene Debatten – nirgends im Grundgesetz stehe, dass nur deutsche Staatsangehörige wählen dürfen.

In Indien wird das Wahlrecht regelrecht manipuliert. In Indien wird das Wahlrecht regelrecht manipuliert. Nach ihrem Wahlsieg in Westbengalen fädelte die BJP den Übertritt von 20 Oppositionsabgeordneten ein, um ihre parlamentarische Mehrheit weiter auszubauen. ANMOL JAIN (EN) zeigt, dass das Anti-Defection-Gesetz dagegen keinen wirksamen Schutz bietet.

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Wie können Hochschulen ihre Unabhängigkeit in Zeiten demokratischer Herausforderungen sichern?

Die Bucerius Law School sucht eine:n Program Manager:in Recht & Gesellschaft (befristet auf drei Jahre, Vollzeit) für das internationale Kooperationsprojekt Higher Education & Democratic Resilience mit der University of Oxford und dem Verfassungsblog. Gesucht wird eine engagierte Persönlichkeit mit Erfahrung an der Schnittstelle von (Rechts-)Wissenschaft, Politik und Zivilgesellschaft.

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Diese Woche ging unser Symposium „On Law and Politics in the Hungarian Transition“ (EN) zu Ende. MÁRTA PARDAVI (EN) erinnert daran, dass selbst die durchdachteste Verfassungsreform wirkungslos bleibt, wenn sie an jenen vorbeigeht, deren Leben sie verbessern soll. Mit Blick auf Polen zeigen KATARZYNA ŁAKOMIEC & BARBARA GRABOWSKA-MOROZ, wie auffällig Frauen beim demokratischen Wiederaufbau fehlen – und dass diese Leerstelle schon in der früheren Vernachlässigung von Frauenrechten angelegt war. EDIT ZGUT-PRZYBYLSKA plädiert für institutionalisierte Beteiligung, dezentrale Macht und eine Zivilgesellschaft, die direkt ins Regierungshandeln eingebunden ist. RENÁTA UITZ untersucht, wie akademische Freiheit in Ungarn gerade umgestaltet wird – und wie sie neu erkämpft werden muss. MICHAL BOBEK findet, dass dieselben rechtsstaatlichen roten Linien auch für Orbáns Nachfolger gelten müssen – für bad guys wie für good guys. Genau diese roten Linien zu überwachen, ist die Aufgabe der Venedig-Kommission – doch Ungarn hat 27 ihrer Gutachten überwiegend ignoriert. ANGELIKA NUßBERGER zeigt, wie die Kommission diese Übergangsphase verlässlich unterstützen kann. Im abschließenden Beitrag erinnern ARMIN VON BOGDANDY & LUKE DIMITRIOS SPIEKER daran, dass die Verfassungsreform nicht nur eine ungarische Angelegenheit, sondern ein europäischer Verfassungsmoment ist.

Doch keine Sorge, das nächste Symposium hat bereits begonnen: „Inter-Judicial Dialogue on Climate Change and Human Rights“ (EN) bringt Richter:innen, Praktiker:innen und Wissenschaftler:innen aus dem europäischen, interamerikanischen und afrikanischen Menschenrechtssystemen zusammen. Im Mittelpunkt steht der Klimawandel als Menschenrechtsfrage. ANNA LUMERDING, MELANIE MAURER & LENA RIEMER eröffnen das Symposium und erklären, wie Klimawandel und Menschenrechte ineinander verschränkt sind. Zwei Jahre nach dem KlimaSeniorinnen-Urteil des EGMR zieht DARIAN PAVLI Bilanz und blickt auf die Folgeverfahren. Für STÉPHANIE CALIGARA ist Müllner v. Austria mehr als KlimaSeniorinnen 2.0 – der Fall könnte zur Schlüsselentscheidung der jungen Klimarechtsprechung des Gerichtshofs werden. NANCY HERNÁNDEZ LÓPEZ widmet sich der Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 des Interamerikanischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte, die die Verbindung von Klimawandel und Menschenrechten endlich rechtsverbindlich machte.

Leider gehen Verbindung und Rechtsverbindlichkeit nicht immer Hand in Hand. Wir wollen uns in unseren kleinen Nationalfestungen in Sicherheit wägen, Brücke hoch, Schotten dicht. Doch der Meeresspiegel steigt und KI kontrolliert die Festung. Die Welt kennt keine Grenzen – und unsere Vorstellungskraft hoffentlich auch nicht, wenn es darum geht, diese tatsächlich grenzenlose Welt auch rechtlich als solche anzuerkennen.

 

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Das war’s für diese Woche.

The post Pilze finden appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

Does that make me a better writer, or a worse one? I don’t know. What does “writer” even mean here? I will never let Claude actually write my texts for me. Perish the thought. But why not, really? Is what Claude has put into my basket really mine? And if not mine, then whose? If I didn’t find it – who did?

Editor’s Pick

by MAXIM BÖNNEMANN

This book begins and ends in the mountains of Montana. In between, it unfolds a panorama of three friends’ lives, told with such force and tenderness that I could not put it down for days. At its center are Cece, Charlie, and Garrett. Cece and Charlie want to get married, but just before the wedding, Cece and the depression-stricken Garrett meet. Their encounter shapes the decades that follow, upends plans, and leaves its mark on the next generation as well. Puchner writes about love and grief, happiness and illness, animals and nature – all of it with such warmth that you find yourself fully absorbed into his Dream State.

 

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The Week on Verfassungsblog

summarised by EVA MARIA BREDLER

Bizarre scenes played out in the European Parliament on Wednesday: highly educated ladies (few) and gentlemen (many) of middle age, who have by and large had it rather easy in life so far, rose to their feet in fine attire in the plenary chamber, clapping and contentedly chanting the slogan “Send Them Back” – half hooligans, half highborn, but please, no diversity. The Parliament passed the so-called Return Regulation with the votes of the conservative and far-right groups; a handful of MEPs at least shouted “Shame on You” in response. Absent, naturally, were those the regulation actually affects – migrants from third countries. They can now be brought, against their will, to a country they neither know nor have ever set foot in, and which the regulation, in Article 4(3), nonetheless defines as the country of return. For DANA SCHMALZ (GER), this is not a return – it is an abduction.

Interestingly, even the distinguished MEPs of the European Parliament are now getting a taste of what it means to be a second-class citizen. The US has tightened its export controls to the point that non-Americans are barred from Anthropic’s most advanced AI models – not at the border, but wherever they happen to be. If you use Anthropic, you’ll see a small banner at the bottom: “Claude Fable is currently unavailable”. GILAD ABIRI and DIMITRY KOCHENOV (ENG) see in this a disturbing new feature of citizenship: it now determines access to productivity and key technologies – and thus polices the gates of a technological future.

A bleak vision of that techno-future was published recently by tech billionaire and Palantir CEO Alex Karp in his manifesto. PAUL NEMITZ (GER) explains what lies behind its 22 points: an order in which security becomes the business model and military power the highest virtue – “a new, dangerous symbiosis of militarist state and tech capital”.

Germany is, fortunately, (still) a long way from that. Here, laws are at least meant to protect against digital violence, not to enable it. But PETRA SUSSNER (GER) warns: the federal government’s new bill ties protection from violence to far-reaching encroachments on fundamental rights.

On the military side, too, things in Germany are running along more traditional lines. The new “Pact For Civil Protection”, with which the federal government wants to bring civil and military defence into closer alignment, contains not a single mention of AI. But SEBASTIAN AMBROS (GER) points to a different gap: the military protection of cultural property. He calls for cultural protection officers in the Bundeswehr.

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Stellenausschreibung

An der Professur für Bürgerliches Recht, Handels-, Gesellschaftsrecht, Compliance und Nachhaltigkeit (Prof. Jan-Erik Schirmer) ist eine Stelle im Projekt „Viadrina Climate Litigation Clinic“ als Akademische*r Mitarbeiter*in (Kenn-Nummer 1104-26-01) zu besetzen. Bewerbungsschluss ist der 05.07.2026.

Unser ausführliches Stellenangebot: www.europa-uni.de/stellenangebote

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On Wednesday, UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan presented her report on freedom of expression in Germany — and called on academic institutions to safeguard academic freedom and to create safe, open spaces for research and a plurality of views. The Hertie School appears to be struggling with this: it has banned Palestinian solidarity symbols at its upcoming 2026 graduation ceremony and required students to sign a declaration accepting these terms. BERNHARD KNOLL-TUDOR (ENG) takes a critical view.

The Max Planck Society is also wrestling with these questions, even in court: was it allowed to dismiss an anthropologist over his contested poem on 7 October 2023? The Halle Labour Court found the dismissal lawful. Ahead of the appeal hearing, HANNAH FRANZKI (GER) explains why she considers this legally unsound.

Criticism of Israel is also occupying the courts in the United Kingdom. After the High Court had declared the ban on Palestine Action unlawful, the Court of Appeal has now overturned that ruling and upheld the ban. For ALAN GREENE, DANIELLA LOCK and COLIN MURRAY (ENG), the margin of appreciation the court grants the Home Secretary leaves judicial review with little of substance to do.

How much of judicial review remains may also decide Zimbabwe’s fate. President Mnangagwa wants to amend the constitution to take a third term in office. That is nothing new in African constitutional culture – but the Zimbabwean constitution has specifically built in safeguards against precisely this. MARKUS BÖCKENFÖRDE (ENG) analyses whether they will hold and what role the Constitutional Court will play.

We also have to worry about executive overreach in Saxony-Anhalt. Should the AfD enter government after the election, it does not need to dismiss anyone in order to control the administration. Instead of dismissals, the AfD can rely on intimidation and uncertainty, as DOMINIK VOGEL (GER) shows.

If the AfD provides an interior minister after September’s state elections, this also raises questions for security federalism: what happens to police data-sharing when the AfD governs Saxony-Anhalt? MARKUS THIEL (GER) explains that data-protection law is built for individual cases and fails when the mistrust extends to an entire state police force.

At the AfD’s request, a district in Thuringia decided at the end of May to forgo funding under the federal programme “Demokratie leben!”. But the democracy funding programme is under pressure nationwide: federal family minister Prien has announced that more than 200 democracy projects will be wound down by the end of the year – in particular those promoting diversity, which in her view target too narrow a left-liberal milieu. VANESSA WINTERMANTEL (GER) sees this as a misreading of democracy and explains why democracy needs diversity.

Entirely in keeping with that democracy-relevant diversity, the right to vote could also be extended to residents without German citizenship. The Left parliamentary group recently called for exactly that in the Bundestag, and the backlash was immediate. Many reflexively pointed to BVerfG decisions from thirty years ago. But that falls short, argues TARIK TABBARA (GER), calling for open debate: nowhere does the Basic Law actually say that only German citizens may vote.

In India, the right to vote is being manipulated in earnest. Following its victory in West Bengal, the BJP engineered the defection of 20 opposition legislators to boost its parliamentary majority. ANMOL JAIN (ENG) shows that the anti-defection law offers no real check: House Chairpersons sit on disqualification petitions, and defecting legislators exploit a merger exception the Constitution never intended for this purpose.

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Wie können Hochschulen ihre Unabhängigkeit in Zeiten demokratischer Herausforderungen sichern?

Die Bucerius Law School sucht eine:n Program Manager:in Recht & Gesellschaft (befristet auf drei Jahre, Vollzeit) für das internationale Kooperationsprojekt Higher Education & Democratic Resilience mit der University of Oxford und dem Verfassungsblog. Gesucht wird eine engagierte Persönlichkeit mit Erfahrung an der Schnittstelle von (Rechts-)Wissenschaft, Politik und Zivilgesellschaft.

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Our symposium “On Law and Politics in the Hungarian Transition” (ENG) drew to a close this week. MÁRTA PARDAVI reminds us that even the most carefully designed constitutional reform remains ineffective if it bypasses those whose lives it is meant to improve. With an eye on Poland, KATARZYNA ŁAKOMIEC and BARBARA GRABOWSKA-MOROZ show how strikingly absent women are from the democratic rebuilding – and how that absence was already laid down in the earlier neglect of women’s rights. EDIT ZGUT-PRZYBYLSKA argues for institutionalised participation, decentralised power, and a civil society embedded directly in the work of government. RENÁTA UITZ examines how academic freedom in Hungary is currently being reshaped – and how it will have to be won back. MICHAL BOBEK holds that the same rule-of-law red lines must also apply to Orbán’s successors – to bad guys and good guys alike. The Venice Commission’s job is to monitor exactly those red lines, but Hungary has overwhelmingly ignored 27 of its opinions. ANGELIKA NUẞBERGER shows how the Commission can reliably support the country through this transition. In the closing piece, ARMIN VON BOGDANDY and LUKE DIMITRIOS SPIEKER remind us that this constitutional reform is not only a Hungarian matter, but a European constitutional moment.

But don’t worry: the next symposium has already begun. “Inter-Judicial Dialogue on Climate Change and Human Rights” (ENG) brings together judges, practitioners and scholars from the European, Inter-American and African human rights systems. At its centre stands climate change as a human rights question. ANNA LUMERDING, MELANIE MAURER and LENA RIEMER open the symposium and explain how climate change and human rights are bound up in one another. Two years on from the ECtHR’s KlimaSeniorinnen judgment, DARIAN PAVLI takes stock and looks at the cases that have followed. For STÉPHANIE CALIGARA, Müllner v. Austria is more than KlimaSeniorinnen 2.0 – the case could become the pivotal decision in the Court’s emerging climate jurisprudence. NANCY HERNÁNDEZ LÓPEZ turns to Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which has finally made the connection between climate change and human rights legally binding.

Sadly, the law does not always keep up with the connections we already live in. We want to feel safe in our small national fortresses – drawbridge up, hatches battened down. But the sea is rising, and AI powers the fortress. The world knows no borders. May our imagination know none either, when it comes to putting that borderlessness into law.

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That’s it for this week. Take care and all the best!

Yours,

the Verfassungsblog Team

 

 

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The post Spotting Mushrooms appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

The relationship between climate change and human rights has occupied international legal scholarship for more than two decades. Yet for much of that period, the relationship remained largely aspirational — acknowledged in soft-law instruments and scholarly commentary, but only partially operationalized by binding international adjudication. Advisory Opinion OC-32/25, adopted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR or the Court) on May 29, 2025, marks a decisive shift in that landscape.

The Opinion was requested on January 9, 2023, by Chile and Colombia¹⁾ — two States acutely experiencing the material consequences of the climate emergency: droughts, floods, wildfires, and the displacement of communities from territories they have inhabited for generations. The question they posed to the Court was deceptively simple: what do the obligations of States parties under the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) actually require in the context of the climate emergency? As the subsequent proceedings made clear, that question touched upon the foundations of State responsibility, the content of substantive rights, the architecture of procedural guarantees, the law of intergenerational equity, and the interface between human rights law and international environmental law.

OC-32/25 was the product of the most participatory proceeding in the Court’s history. In the written phase, 613 distinct actors submitted contributions, including 9 States, 62 indigenous and rural communities, 178 non-governmental organizations, 134 academic institutions, and more than 200 amicus curiae briefs.²⁾ The Court subsequently convened public hearings in three cities — Bridgetown (Barbados), Brasília, and Manaus — engaging 185 delegations across jurisdictions and epistemic traditions. The breadth of that participation was not merely procedural; it shaped the substantive content of the Opinion in ways that technical legal analysis alone would not have produced.

This blog post examines the four principal doctrinal contributions of OC-32/25 and reflects on their implications for the development of international human rights law.

Nature as a Subject of Rights: Paradigm Shift or Evolutionary Development?

The first and perhaps most philosophically significant contribution of OC-32/25 is its recognition of the rights of Nature — a move that reconfigures the foundational categories through which human rights law has traditionally related to the natural world.

Classical international environmental law treated Nature as an object of protection, regulated on behalf of human interests or, at most, as a common subject to shared stewardship obligations. The rights-of-Nature paradigm challenges this framework at its root, proposing instead that ecosystems possess intrinsic legal status — that their protection is not merely instrumentally justified by reference to human welfare, but is independently grounded in their structural role in maintaining the conditions of life on Earth.

The Court’s reasoning proceeded through several steps to make this recognition. It first observed that ecosystems are complex and interdependent systems in which each component plays an essential role for the stability and continuity of the whole. This ecological interdependence, in the Court’s analysis, generates a legal interest in the preservation of that integrity that cannot be fully captured by rights framed exclusively in anthropocentric terms. Advancing toward a paradigm that recognizes intrinsic rights of ecosystems is fundamental for protecting their integrity and functionality over the long term and provides coherent and effective legal tools to prevent existential harm before it becomes irreversible.

The Opinion acknowledged a significant and growing normative and jurisprudential trend in this direction. Constitutional provisions in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Mexico have granted rights to Nature.³⁾ Judicial decisions from Colombia (Río Atrato), Brazil, and India have recognized river systems as subjects of rights.⁴⁾ Fifteen UN General Assembly resolutions on Harmony with Nature and the 2024 Pact for the Future have registered this emerging consensus at the global level.⁵⁾ The Court’s contribution was to bring this paradigm within the framework of the ACHR, reading it through the lens of the pro natura and pro persona principles in a mutually reinforcing way.

The doctrinal implications are significant. If Nature possesses legal rights under the ACHR framework, then communities — and in particular indigenous and Afro-descendant communities who have historically served as guardians of ecosystems — acquire standing to enforce those rights not only derivatively, on the basis of harm to their own recognized entitlements, but as stewards of a legally protected subject. This has the potential to transform the architecture of environmental litigation before the Court, expanding both the range of cognizable harms and the actors empowered to seek redress.

Whether this development constitutes a genuine paradigm shift or an evolutionary extension of existing protective doctrines remains a question for scholarly debate. What is clear is that OC-32/25 has provided a doctrinal anchor for rights-of-Nature claims within the Inter-American system that did not previously exist.

Jus Cogens and the Prohibition of Irreversible Environmental Damage

The second contribution of OC-32/25 is, from a formal sources-of-law perspective, its most legally audacious: the recognition that the obligation not to cause irreversible damage to the climate and the environment has the character of jus cogens — a peremptory norm of international law from which no derogation is permitted.

The legal consequences of this characterization are far-reaching. Under the law of jus cogens, as codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and progressively developed by the International Law Commission, peremptory norms generate erga omnes obligations — obligations owed to the international community as a whole, not merely to individual States in bilateral relations. They cannot be displaced by treaty, give rise to a duty of cooperation to bring violations to an end, and inform the interpretation of all other norms of international law.

The Court’s reasoning rested on three foundational observations. First, there is a clear relationship of dependence between the protection of core human rights — the rights to life, personal integrity, health, and non-discrimination — and the prohibition of anthropogenic conduct that irreversibly disrupts the planetary ecosystem. Second, preserving the ecosystem’s equilibrium is not merely desirable but legally necessary for the effective fulfillment of obligations already codified by international law. Third, recognizing such an obligation does not contradict existing positive law; rather, it contributes to giving fuller effect to existing norms. It reflects a level of normative consolidation that satisfies the threshold for peremptory norm status, given its indispensable connection to the protection of human life, dignity, and intergenerational justice.

The specific anthropogenic activities subject to this prohibition were identified with precision: large-scale, irreversible deforestation of primary forests crucial to biodiversity, climate regulation, and hydrological cycles; massive and irreversible biodiversity loss; persistent large-scale contamination of vital resources such as freshwater, oceans, or the atmosphere; and irreversible alteration of natural biogeochemical cycles — the carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles on which all life depends.

If the prohibition of irreversible environmental damage is a peremptory norm, then every trade agreement, every investment treaty, every development financing arrangement must be interpreted in its light. The compatibility of investor-State dispute settlement mechanisms with this norm — where those mechanisms have been used to challenge environmental regulation —can no longer be assessed by reference to the lex specialis of investment law alone. The jus cogens character of the prohibition creates a hierarchical relationship that investment law, treaty-based or not, cannot escape.

This finding will attract both enthusiastic support and rigorous scholarly critique. The process by which norms acquire peremptory status — and the authority of a regional human rights court to identify them — will be contested. These are legitimate debates, and they are essential to the development of international law. The Court’s characterization in OC-32/25 is best understood as an invitation to that conversation, not a foreclosure of it.

The ‘Right’ to a Healthy Climate

The third contribution of OC-32/25 is the recognition of a right to a healthy climate — a right derived from, and part of the right to a healthy environment. The Court first recognized the right to a healthy environment as an autonomous right in its Advisory Opinion OC-23/17 (2017)⁶⁾, holding that it is protected under Article 26 of the ACHR, read in conjunction with other treaty obligations. OC-32/25 builds on that foundation but proceeds further: it holds that the climate system’s unique global functions, the specific elements that compose it, and the dynamics necessary to ensure its equilibrium require a distinct and differentiated legal framework — not simply an application of the environmental right to a new context.

The Court defined a healthy climate as one derived from a climate system free of dangerous anthropogenic interference, for both human beings and for Nature as a whole. This definition is notable for two reasons: first, it incorporates the language of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)⁷⁾, thereby anchoring the human rights framework in the existing architecture of international climate law. Second, it extends the beneficiaries of the right beyond human beings, reinforcing the rights-of-Nature paradigm discussed above.

The right has two analytically distinct dimensions. In its collective dimension, it protects the shared interest of present and future generations — and of other species — in a climate system capable of sustaining life and wellbeing. The right in this dimension is indivisible and non-exclusive: it cannot be reduced to a sum of individual entitlements, and its enjoyment by one actor does not diminish its availability to others. In its individual dimension, it protects each person’s possibility of developing within a climate system free of dangerous anthropogenic interference, and functions as a precondition for the exercise of other human rights — from health to housing to cultural identity.

Central to the Court’s analysis is the principle of intergenerational equity. The Opinion emphasizes that climate change will affect most severely those who are young today, who will live their entire adult lives in an increasingly adverse climate, as well as groups in situations of vulnerability who bear the costs of a crisis to which their contribution has been minimal. As deployed by OC-32/25, intergenerational equity carries specific legal content: States must not postpone climate action in ways that shift costs and harms to future generations; climate policies must account for the disproportionate burden placed on present groups in situations of vulnerability; and the non-regression principle prohibits States from reducing the level of climate protection already achieved.

The practical significance of this right ultimately depends on its justiciability. OC-32/25 addresses this concern by identifying judicially workable standards: science-based mitigation targets, the Paris Agreement’s ambition-ratchet mechanism, the non-regression principle, and the heightened due diligence standard applicable in the climate context. The experience of domestic climate litigation — from the Urgenda decision in the Netherlands⁸⁾, to Neubauer in Germany⁹⁾, to Future Generations v. Ministry of the Environment in Colombia¹⁰⁾ — demonstrates that such standards are capable of judicial enforcement. OC-32/25 provides a doctrinal framework for extending that experience to the Inter-American system.

A Comprehensive Framework of State Obligations

The fourth contribution of OC-32/25 is the comprehensive mapping of State obligations across three domains: substantive rights, procedural rights, and the protection of groups in situations of vulnerability.

Substantive Rights and the Standard of Heightened Due Diligence

On substantive rights, the Court applied a standard of heightened due diligence previously developed in contexts involving vulnerable groups.

Significantly, OC-32/25 addressed the extraterritorial dimension of climate obligations. The climate system is inherently transboundary: greenhouse gas emissions released in one territory contribute to global atmospheric concentrations and generate harms distributed across the planet, often concentrated in States and communities that have contributed minimally to the problem. The Court held that States bear responsibility for the human rights violations caused by emissions originating in their territory when a causal link with harm suffered by persons outside their territory can be established. This finding carries significant implications for major historical emitters and for climate litigation strategies targeting high-emission States.

Procedural Rights and Climate Democracy

OC-32/25 develops a rich framework for what might be termed climate democracy — the procedural architecture through which affected communities participate in, contest, and enforce climate governance.

On access to information, the Opinion goes beyond the general obligation of environmental information disclosure to require that States proactively combat climate disinformation. This addresses directly one of the most serious governance failures of the climate era: the systematic propagation of false or misleading information about the scientific consensus on climate change, which has functioned to delay effective policy response and undermine the capacity of citizens and communities to make informed decisions about their exposure to climate risks.

On access to justice, the Court applied the pro actione principle — the interpretive presumption in favor of access to adjudicative mechanisms — endorsed collective standing in climate cases, addressed the evidentiary challenges inherent in climate causation, and called for special reparation frameworks capable of addressing both individual and collective harm. The recognition of collective standing is particularly significant: because climate harm is diffuse and aggregate in nature, individual standing requirements, if applied strictly, would systematically exclude from judicial redress the communities most adversely affected by climate change.

Differentiated Obligations Toward Vulnerable Groups

OC-32/25 builds a detailed architecture of differentiated obligations with respect to groups whose rights are disproportionately affected by climate change, often in inverse proportion to their contribution to causing it.

For children and adolescents, the Opinion recognizes that their rights are uniquely implicated by a crisis that will define the entire arc of their lives. Heightened protection is required, grounded in the principle of the best interests of the child as interpreted in the climate context.

For indigenous, tribal, Afro-descendant, and peasant communities, the destruction of ecosystems integral to their cultural identity, territorial rights, and means of subsistence demands specific legal remedies. This builds on the Court’s extensive prior jurisprudence on indigenous and tribal rights under Articles 21 and 26 of the ACHR and extends that framework to the climatic dimension of territorial integrity.

For environmental human rights defenders, the Opinion requires precautionary protection even before harm materializes. This responds to a crisis of particular severity in Latin America, where the killing and criminalization of environmental defenders occurs at levels that have no parallel in any other region of the world. The Court’s framing underscores that their protection is not peripheral to effective climate governance but constitutive of it.

Implications for Inter-Judicial Dialogue and the Role of Courts

Three broader reflections emerge from the analysis of OC-32/25 that are of particular relevance for inter-judicial dialogue across regional human rights systems.

The first concerns the structure of that dialogue itself. OC-32/25 was not produced in isolation. The Court engaged in a conscious inter-judicial conversation — with the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the European Court of Human Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and numerous domestic supreme and constitutional courts. The Opinion cites climate jurisprudence from Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Colombia, Brazil, and the United States, among others. This cross-referencing reflects an understanding that the climate crisis, precisely because it is global and systemic, demands a coherent and mutually reinforcing global legal response that no single tribunal can construct alone. It also reflects the Court’s awareness that the legitimacy of its doctrinal contributions is enhanced — not diminished — by situating them within a broader conversation about the direction of international law.

The second reflection concerns the relationship between courts and science. OC-32/25 engaged extensively with the best available climate science, including Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, scientific evidence on planetary tipping points, and epidemiological data on differential vulnerability. The Court did not shy away from technical complexity. But it also did not allow that complexity to become a pretext for judicial inaction. One of the most important principles that emerges from the Opinion is that scientific uncertainty does not suspend the precautionary principle; it activates it. The burden of proof is shifted: it falls on those who would act in ways that risk irreversible harm to demonstrate that such action is consistent with scientific knowledge, rather than on the affected communities to prove a level of causal certainty that the systemic nature of climate harm makes practically unattainable.

The third reflection concerns institutional legitimacy. Courts that engage with climate change will be accused of judicial overreach — of substituting legal for political judgment on questions that are, in part, matters of economic and democratic choice. The Court took those concerns seriously. But it also drew a principled distinction between determining what the law requires, which is a properly judicial function, and prescribing the specific policies through which States discharge their legal obligations, which remains a matter for democratic deliberation. OC-32/25 provides clear legal standards — science-based targets, non-regression, heightened due diligence, protection of vulnerable groups — while leaving to States the discretion of policy design within those standards. This balance between legal determinacy and institutional restraint is, in the Court’s view, the appropriate response to concerns about overreach, rather than a reason for withdrawal from the field.

Conclusion

Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 represents the most comprehensive and legally sophisticated pronouncement on climate change and human rights that the Inter-American system has produced. Its four principal contributions — the recognition of the rights of Nature, the jus cogens characterization of the prohibition of irreversible environmental damage, the autonomous right to a healthy climate, and the comprehensive mapping of State obligations — collectively transform the doctrinal landscape within which climate litigation and advocacy may proceed.

The Opinion does not resolve all questions. The jus cogens characterization will attract sustained critique. The justiciability of the right to a healthy climate will require further development through contentious case law. The application of extraterritorial obligations to emissions-related harm poses evidentiary and causation challenges that future proceedings will need to address. These are not defects of the Opinion; they are the inevitable features of any judicial pronouncement that engages genuinely with the frontier of a developing area of law.

What OC-32/25 accomplishes is to provide the clearest possible statement, from a regional human rights tribunal with a record of progressive and consequential jurisprudence, of what international human rights law requires from States in the climate emergency. It situates those requirements within the broader movement of international law, engaging in productive dialogue with other international and domestic courts. And it gives voice — through an unprecedented participatory process — to the communities whose rights are most acutely at stake: indigenous peoples, small island States, environmental defenders, children, and the generations who have not yet been born but whose futures depend on the choices made now.

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