CYIL vol. 14 (2023)

TOMÁŠ BRUNER CYIL 14 (2023) soon by expected advisory opinions of the ICJ and Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR). The ICJ was recently asked what is the international obligations of states in regard to GHG emissions are and what the consequences of their breach for states are. 55 The IACHR received a question regarding the scope of human rights obligations of states when responding to the climate emergency. 56 The expected advisory opinions together with the upcoming decision of ECHPR 57 could shed more light on points 1, 3, and 5. Since these clarifications are expected, the author of this article considers it right that the Czech Court took a rather restrained approach and emphasized a current key role of political (not judicial) action. A certain shortcoming of this approach is that the Supreme Administrative Court did not advise who and when should conduct the judicial review of the political actions later on. The Supreme Administrative Court did not dedicate much attention to the possibility that the EU legislative specifications on how to meet the EU NDC target would be adopted too slowly or inefficiently. It just briefly mentioned that the sufficiency of the EU NDC should be reviewed by the Conference of the Parties to the Paris Agreement, while the progress in fulfilling the EU NDC should be guaranteed by the EU Commission and eventually reviewed by the ICJ. This begs a question whether the plaintiffs should submit a lawsuit against the European Commission in such a case and whether current interpretations of the Supreme Administrative Court might have been confirmed by a preliminary ruling of the ECJ during the proceedings. This would provide a truly valuable contribution to discussions on role of courts in combating climate change. 58 While internationally, the Czech case is only one of many, the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court is crucial for the Czech national practice of international law. It builds on a presupposition that the sufficiency of measures against climate change should be reviewed prevalently in political (including electoral) decision making, not by judicial decision making. This is likely to determine the fate of Czech climate litigation for several years. Globally, climate litigations for the inaction of governments but also business corporations rise steeply. 59 Climate litigations will undoubtedly also be initiated against business corporations in the Czech Republic. This already occurred in the Netherlands, e.g., in the case Milieudefensie v Shell which recognized far-going climate protection obligations of private enterprises under tort law. Extending the ‘ Urgenda ’ rationale, the Court derived climate protection obligations of private enterprises including enterprise groups from the asserted horizontal effect of human rights and soft law declarations of the United Nations on the environmental responsibilities of the private sector. 60 55 UN GA. Request for an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the obligations of States in respect of climate change. 1 March 2023. UN Doc A/77/L.58. 56 The Republic of Chile and the Republic of Colombia. Request for an Advisory Opinion on Climate Emergency and Human Rights to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights from the Republic of Colombia and the Republic of Chile. 9 January 2023. Original document and unofficial English translation available at the website of Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (3 August 2023), available at: http://climatecasechart.com/non-us case/request-for-an-advisory-opinion-on-the-scope-of-the-state-obligations-for-responding-to-the-climate emergency/. 57 See footnote 39. 58 For details of the discussions see KELLER, M., National court review in environmental matters: part of the problem or part of the solution? 20 ERA Forum 2020, pp. 683–690. 59 HIGHAM, C., SETZER, J. Global trends in climate change litigation: 2023 snapshot , p. 3. 60 REHBINDER, E., Ambition as a Legal Concept in the Paris Agreement and Climate Litigation: Some

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