On 11 March 2026, the Rio Course on Regional and International Dispute Settlement (Rio CRIDS) was honored to welcome Prof. Salvador Herencia-Carrasco, Professor at the Faculty of Law, Section de Droit Civil, and director of the Human Rights Clinic of the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa. The course is held by the FGV Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ programme and directed by Prof. Paula Wojcikiewicz Almeida.

Prof. Herencia-Carrasco discussed the implications from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ (IACtHR) Advisory Opinion OC 32/25 on Climate Emergency and Human Rights. The Court was requested to clarify if there was a human rights and environmental obligation in response to climate change, with particular attention to vulnerable groups. This opinion gathered so much interest that it broke the record of participation in the region by a landslide. The lecture detailed the contributions of OC 32/25, in particular that, although the IACtHR can only determine state responsibility, it established clear obligations for companies to address the climate emergency. The opinion also concluded that there is no mitigation of climate emergency if it does not involve the respect for democracy, that public policies on climate change must be based on science, among other landmark findings.

According to Prof. Herencia-Carrasco, it is the most important advisory opinion of the IACtHR in the 21^st century, as it has the potential to shape how we see the intersection between human rights and the environment in the years to come and may serve as a basis for climate litigation at both national and Inter-American levels. Together with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the International Court of Justice, the IACtHR has set a jurisprudential framework on climate change, opening the possibility to start thinking of new approaches on how to understand and address the intersection between climate change and human rights.

We extend our gratitude to Prof. Herencia-Carrasco for providing a rich discussion on this timely topic. We look forward to further collaboration.