the opinion that, given the high risk of hazardous climate change, the State has a serious duty of care to take measures to prevent it. 325 Similarly, in addressing responsibility for common law torts, for example, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes of the US Supreme Court observed that liability may be properly imposed when the harm in question was both reasonably foreseeable and avoidable. 326 Numerous scholars have reiterated and expanded upon Justice Holmes’ analysis. 327 In its treatise on “Corporate Complicity & Legal Accountability,” the International Commission of Jurists explicitly addressed the fundamental tenets of responsibility underlying the laws of tort in common law jurisdictions, of non-contractual obligations in civil law countries, and the law of human rights. Recognizing the growing importance of civil liability in assuring corporations are held accountable for their role in human rights violations, and further recognizing that laws of civil liability and human rights protect similar fundamental interests, the International Commission of Jurists undertook a comparative analysis of laws of tort and civil liability across countries, and explored “the ways in which, across jurisdictions, civil liability may arise for companies and/or their officials when they are complicit in gross human rights abuses.”328 The International Commission of Jurists distilled the principles of civil liability (i.e. responsibility) into four basic questions, which it found equally applicable to determining whether companies were complicit in gross human rights abuses, and which the Commission may find instructive in this instance: 1. Was harm inflicted to an interest of the victim that is protected by law? 2. Did the company’s conduct contribute to the infliction of the harm? 3. Did the company know or would a prudent company in the same circumstances have known that its conduct posed a risk of harm to the victim? 4. Considering this risk, did the company take the precautionary measures a prudent company would have taken in order to prevent the risk from materializing? 329 325 Urgenda Foundation v. Kingdom of the Netherlands, Judgment: Regarding the failure of the Dutch State to take sufficient actions to prevent dangerous climate change (District Court of the Hague 2015); see also Plan B brief, at § 6.2. 326 CIEL, SMOKE AND FUMES: THE LEGAL AND EVIDENTIARY BASIS FOR HOLDING OIL COMPANIES ACCOUNTABLE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, supra note 323, at 5. 327 See id. (for a discussion of additional scholarship, including from HLA Hart, Stephen Perry, John C. P. Goldberg, and Benjamin Zipursky). 328 Id. at 5-6 (citing INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS, CORPORATE COMPLICITY & LEGAL ACCOUNTABILITY, VOLUME 3: CIVIL REMEDIES (2008), available at http://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Corporatecomplicity-legal-accountability-vol3-publication-2009-eng.pdf). 329 CIEL, SMOKE AND FUMES: THE LEGAL AND EVIDENTIARY BASIS FOR HOLDING OIL COMPANIES ACCOUNTABLE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, supra note 323, at 6. 68