School of Law welcomes Ambassador Ximena Fuentes, Chilean Ambassador to the UK

Ambassador Fuentes was hosted by the Centre for Law and Social Justice to give a lecture on state responsibility and climate change.

On Monday 17 February, the Centre for Law and Social Justice (LSJ) welcomed Ambassador Ximena Fuentes, the Chilean ambassador to the UK, to speak about state responsibility and climate change.

Ambassador Fuentes is an attorney-at-law, with a degree in Legal and Social Sciences from Universidad de Chile and a PhD in International Law from Oxford University. She is an Associate Professor of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile and former President of the Chilean Society of International Law. Prior to starting her Ambassadorship, Ambassador Fuentes held a political appointment as Chile’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2022–2023.

In her lecture, Ambassador Fuentes examined the recent increase in climate change litigation before domestic and international tribunals. She discussed the legal and ethical obligations of states to mitigate climate change impacts and highlighted the importance of international cooperation in achieving sustainable solutions. She also referenced several key cases and legal principles, including:

1. The request by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law for an Advisory Opinion from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on the specific obligations of States Parties to UNCLOS on Climate Change and International Law.
    
2. The pending request by Chile and Colombia (9 January 2023) for an Advisory Opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), aiming to clarify the scope of State’s obligations under human rights treaties for responding to the climate emergency.
    
3. The pending request by the General Assembly of the United Nations for an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on the obligations of States with respect to climate change.
    
4. The case brought by Daniel Billy and others v Australia (Torres Strait Islanders Petition) before the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations. The Human Rights Committee delivered its decision on 23 September 2022. The Committee found that Australia violated the human rights of the Torres Strait Islanders by not taken timely and adequate measures to protect the human rights of the petitioners in the context of the detrimental effects of climate change.
    
5. The case brought by an association of senior women (Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland, also known as the KlimaSeniorinnen case ) against Switzerland before the European Court of Human Rights claiming that the Swiss government’s inadequate climate policies violated their right to life and health. The ECHR delivered its decision on 9 April 2024, establishing that Switzerland violated the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8) and access to court (Article 6 § 1).

The director of LSJ, Rebecca Moosavian, said of hosting Ambassador Fuentes:

Thanks so much to Professor Fuentes for sharing her expertise with our Centre for Law & Social Justice colleagues and students.  We really enjoyed her warm, engaging talk about her work on leading International Court of Justice cases with crucial implications for our environment.  It was lovely to see that following the seminar, Professor Fuentes was surrounded by keen students with lots of questions.