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Changing Corporate Thinking About the Environment

  • Robert Hinkley
  • 4 days ago
  • 3 min read

Corporate lawyer Robert Hinkley says ICJ decision has potential to end greenhouse gas emissions


When the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its lengthy advisory opinion on climate change in The Hague on 23 July 2025, corporate lawyer Robert Hinkley was sceptical. “Initially, I wasn’t sure it was that important,” he admits. But after poring over the judgment, he came to see it as a watershed – a decision that may shake both governments and companies out of their complacency.


A ruling that threatens polluters and governments


The world court’s unanimous opinion, requested by a UN general assembly resolution spearheaded by Vanuatu, redefines states’ climate obligations. In the words of Judge Yuji Iwasawa, countries must “cooperate to achieve concrete emission reduction targets,” and failure to comply with the “stringent obligations” of climate treaties is a breach of international law.


The court went further: states are also responsible for the actions of companies within their jurisdiction. Failing to curb fossil‑fuel production and subsidies could result in reparations to injured nations, including restitution and compensation.


The Guardian summarised the implication bluntly: countries must prevent harm to the climate system and failing to do so could mean paying compensation and making other forms of restitution.


Why this decision matters


Hinkley believes the ICJ’s two‑fold approach – threatening states and polluters with damages while obliging governments to regulate – is “simply brilliant.” “For the last thirty years governments have tried to pass laws to stop greenhouse gas emissions in order to fulfill the pledges they made to do so at COPs, but they have been unsuccessful,” he says. In his view, polluters and politicians have used misinformation to create a political wedge among voters and delay regulation.


The court’s opinion changes the calculus by attaching real monetary consequences to inaction.  Before, nations faced no consequences for failing to live up to the pledges they made at the COPs.  Now, they must act or risk facing claims for loss and damage from vulnerable nations.


The ruling also signals that governments cannot simply sit down with industry and negotiate half measures. Hinkley warns that repeating the past – negotiating with polluters who have every incentive to delay – will produce the same failures.

Instead, he argues for a more fundamental shift: changing corporate law so that companies are no longer allowed to cause severe harm to the environment. 


Legislatures everywhere should shift from trying to solve the problem through changing corporate regulation to changing corporate governance. 


Hinkley says the duty of directors in every jurisdiction throughout the world is more or less the same.  They must act in the best interests of the company, even when it may be severely damaging the environment.  To Hinkley, that is the problem.


Changing corporate culture


Hinkley proposes a simple reform. Corporate law everywhere could be amended so that directors must make money for shareholders “but not at the expense of severe damage to the environment.” Those eleven words, he says, would remove the corporate licence to pollute when no law prohibits them from doing it. 

They achieve the goal without damaging the profit motive. Companies that emit significant quantities of GHGs would have to lift their game by stopping the emissions.   The duty to protect shareholder value would remain, but directors would be required to avoid causing severe environmental damage in pursuit of profit.


Hinkley suggests that voters could push for this change by asking candidates for public office a simple question--whether they believe corporations should be allowed to damage the environment until governments manage to pass a law to stop them.  He continued, “We should have learned by now that this doesn’t work.” 


“If big companies are going to interfere in democracy to prevent government from stopping their intentional infliction of severe damage, then government must act to change the way corporate directors think and direct their businesses,” he said.

For Hinkley, this is the beginning of a new chapter. He believes the ICJ ruling “is going to be a turning point in the fight against climate change and global warming.”



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