Future African Generations and Intergenerational Climate Justice: Reflections on the ICJ Advisory Opinion
Picture Credit: "Climate change in Kenya" by Africa Progress Panel is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
On 12 April 2023, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted Resolution 77/276, requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on states’ climate obligations.
The Court was asked to clarify states’ international duties to protect the climate system from greenhouse gas emissions for present and future generations, and to determine the legal consequences of state actions or omissions causing significant climate harm, especially to vulnerable states, communities, and future generations.
On 23 July 2025, the ICJ delivered its landmark advisory opinion, marking a historic development in international climate law. It was the most widely participated advisory opinion in ICJ history, with 91 states and organizations including nine African states and the African Union (AU), submitting written statements. This modest participation, by African states and the AU, underscores how deeply vulnerable regions like Africa view the ICJ’s opinion as a critical tool in shaping global climate justice for future African generations.
Defining Future Generations: Why Africa Matters
International law offers no authoritative definition of future generations. However, soft law instruments such as the Maastricht Principles define future generations as persons, groups, and peoples who “do not yet exist but will exist and inherit the earth”. While immediate crises remain urgent, considering future generations is a matter of justice, survival, and legal responsibility. They depend on our choices today, just as we relied on the foresight of those before us.
The need to focus the attention on future generations is highlighted when one examines the issue of climate change temporalities and the global demographics. Regarding the former, greenhouse gas (GHE) emissions that trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, leading to global warming and climate change are not bound by time. Their harmful effects may surface long after the emitters are gone. While the exact conditions facing African descendants remain uncertain, their situation will undoubtedly be difficult. The IPCC warns that climate impacts will persist across centuries, with irreversible changes to ecosystems, biodiversity, and the livelihoods, health and well-being of current and future generations.
Demographically, the UN High-Level Committee on Programmes (HLCP) Core Group on Duties to the Future observed that more people will be born in this century (10.9 billion) than are currently living (7.7 billion), with the majority born in the Global South—particularly Africa. Hence, several African states such as Cameroon, Namibia, Sierra Leone and Kenya raised the interest of future generations in their written submissions to the ICJ. Kenya recalled that future generations have since guided the development of international law, recalling that United Nations system was conceived with the express purpose “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” (UN Charter preamble).
Although all future peoples face climate risks, those of African descent are likely to be disproportionally affected, due to vulnerability. African states are particularly vulnerable to climate change because they lack the resources, capacity, and infrastructure needed to mitigate or adapt effectively.
This vulnerability compounds structural inequalities that begin before birth, accumulate over the life course and are passed on to the next generation. These inequalities are not due to individual choices, but are shaped by economic, political and social structures of the global world that keep some communities disadvantaged. Inequalities also intersect with ethnicity and compound over time, making it likely that, without bold intervention, Africa’s future will be even more unequal. Absent effective mitigation, African descendants will inherit intensified risks while remaining under-resourced to confront them.
Against this backdrop, the UNGA’s second question to the ICJ, focused on future generations, was essentially relevant to Africa, where most of the world’s population will live, yet risk being in a virtuous cycle of vulnerability.
Future Generations and Intergenerational Climate Justice
Because future generations are disproportionately affected by a crisis they did not cause, intergenerational climate justice was central to the UNGA’s request for an advisory opinion. Climate justice broadly refers to justice in the context of climate change. When applied across time, it becomes intergenerational climate justice. Though the concept of justice is contested, it is generally understood to encompass inter alia fairness, equity, and responsibility.
On equity , Article 3 (1) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) provides that states should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity. Similarly, the Paris Agreement’s preamble recognises climate change as “a common concern of humankind,” that demands respect for intergenerational equity.
In its opinion, the ICJ describes intergenerational equity as an expression of the idea that present generations are trustees of humanity tasked with preserving dignified living conditions and transmitting them to future generations (para 156). The Court further described intergenerational equity as a manifestation of equity in the general sense (para 157), and that “[e]quity as a legal concept is a direct emanation of the idea of justice” (para 152).
In this light, the Advisory Opinion reinforces the understanding that climate change is an intergenerational justice issue. Yet, as Judge Sebutinde observed in her separate opinion, the Court fell short of comprehensively addressing the legal implications of climate change for intergenerational justice.
“Justice for African descendants must include climate reparations that transcend time, ensuring that those yet unborn inherit not a debt of harm, but a legacy of responsibility and restoration.”
At its core, intergenerational climate justice entails accountability (responsibility), and restorative measures to mitigate the negative effects of inequality. It also refers to addressing past injustices and inequities or historical harms, which impact the rights, needs and interests of present and future generations.
The UNFCCC preamble recognises that most historical and current greenhouse gas emissions harms originate in developed countries, while developing countries have contributed little. This acknowledgement grounds the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC), which affirms that all nations share a duty to combat climate change, but not on equal terms, since their historical contributions and economic capacities differ.
Reparations for African Descendants
Under international law, Article 31 of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility confirms that a responsible state must make full reparation for injury caused by its wrongful act. The ICJ affirmed this and further noted that reparation requires proof of damage and causation, whether by injured states or, under human rights law, individuals (para 449). Importantly, international human rights jurisprudence recognises that victim status may extend to future generations, even if the impairment of their right has not yet occurred. What is required is proof of a substantial ‘real risk’ or ‘irreparable harm’, whether imminent or remote, rather than a purely hypothetical possibility.
Because climate harms are irreversible and scientifically verified, the risk faced by African descendants is not hypothetical. Recognising them as victims enables their representatives to hold polluters accountable. Given that major polluters—largely developed and industrialised states—bear greater responsibility, they should bear the burden of reparations. This reasoning raises critical questions: can reparations, as a form of justice, extend to future generations, and if so, in what form?
Climate Change Reparations for African Descendants
Reparations broadly describe measures that respond to past harms while also seeking to improve the lives of victims into the future. They have both a backward and forward-looking character:on one hand, identifying and compensating for specific past harms; on the other, recognising that such harms have continuing effects and therefore require remedies that build resilience and improve future conditions. This forward-looking element is especially important in the climate context, where harms unfold across generations.
Several African states stressed before the Court that people affected by climate change must have access to reparations, with Namibia, Madagascar, and the AU explicitly linking reparations to future generations. Although the Court did not explicitly affirm that future descendants could claim reparations or any state for that matter, its view on the matter has nuanced implication for future generations.
Pathways to Reparative Justice
ILC Articles on State Responsibility (Arts. 34–37) provide that reparations may take the form of restitution, compensation, satisfaction, or a combination thereof.
As the Court observes, restitution, which is the re-establishment of the situation that existed before the wrongful act was committed, may prove difficult or unfeasible in the case of climate harm, since such harm is often not easily reversible. However, when restitution takes the form of restoring ecosystems and biodiversity through reafforestation, afforestation, and the establishment of protected areas- it will directly benefit future generations by safeguarding ecosystems and biodiversity.
When restitution is materially impossible, states must provide compensation. Egypt, Namibia, and the African Union all raised compensation for future generations. While compensation normally addresses financially assessable losses, financial compensation for climate harm is unsatisfactory, mainly because quantifying such harm is inherently difficult. The ILC Articles on State Responsibility recognise that environmental damage often extends beyond what can be readily quantified. Moreover, assessing the monetary value of loss and damage suffered by future generations entails epistemological and methodological challenges. Still, compensation cannot be denied simply because the victims are not yet born. A befitting compensation is the kind that is due to the environment, in and of itself— which may include indemnification for the loss of environmental goods and services until the climate system recovers (para 453).
Finally, satisfaction remains relevant where restitution and compensation are inadequate. It can include acknowledgment of a breach, apologies, or other symbolic acts. In the climate context, satisfaction may involve education and awareness programs that equip present generations to mitigate and adapt, thereby safeguarding the rights of future generations. Another innovative modality could be the creation of trust funds to manage compensation in the interests of future beneficiaries.
Conclusion
As the proverb reminds us, “we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”. The ICJ’s advisory opinion reminds us that climate justice cannot be confined to the present. Reparations, whether through restitution, compensation or satisfaction, must be forward-looking, designed to preserve ecosystems, build resilience, and empower future generations. For Africa, where vulnerability runs deepest, the need is urgent. Justice for African descendants must include climate reparations that transcend time, ensuring that those yet unborn inherit not a debt of harm, but a legacy of responsibility and restoration.
