Climate change is such a pressing, dangerous and universal threat that it should be made illegal under international law, a top barrister has told a conference of leading lawyers in London. Philippe Sands QC, an international law specialist and Professor of Law at University College London, argued that the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) should make it an “obligation under international law” to ensure that global temperatures never rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This would follow the precedent of a landmark decision in June this year by a Dutch court as a result of a case brought by a green activist group – the Urgenda Foundation – against the Netherlands government. The court ruled that the government must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by much more than it had intended – by at least 25 per cent by 2020, relative to 1990 levels – in order to prevent possibly dangerous climate change. In its judgement the court referred repeatedly to the 2° C target, as if it were an article of holy writ, accepted by all, disputed by no one. Sands told his audience of leading judges, lawyers and legal academics from 11 nations that