At the request of the United Nations and its member governments, the top UN “court” is set to rule on the supposed legal “obligations” of governments when it comes to fighting CO2 emissions and the alleged man-made “climate change” they supposedly cause. Experts say it may be the most significant case ever heard by the global body.
The Biden administration joined governments around the world asking the court to take a strong stand on the issue. But critics are sounding the alarm. Agriculture, energy, transportation, and other industries are all in the crosshairs, fueling concerns over more government-mandated economic carnage ahead.
“Largest Ever Case”
While the ruling expected from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) later this year is officially considered “advisory,” it will have profound economic and political implications for the entire world. The UN is calling this the “largest ever case before the UN world court.” Media propagandists, meanwhile, framed it as putting “the entire industrialized world on trial.”
UN leaders expect governments around the world as well as international organizations to craft their “climate” policies based on the findings of the controversial judicial body. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a proud socialist, was one of many key figures touting the significance of the case in the evolution of the global “climate regime,” as they call it.
Encouraging the UN General Assembly in 2023 to ask the ICJ to rule on the issue, Guterres said the body’s decisions “have tremendous importance and can have a long-standing impact on the international legal order.”
The ruling, expected later this year, he continued, will “assist the General Assembly, the United Nations and Member States to take the bolder and stronger climate action that our world so desperately needs.”
“It could also guide the actions and conduct of States in their relations with each other, as well as towards their own citizens,” added Guterres. “This is essential.”
Kangaroo Court
Long ridiculed by critics as a “kangaroo” court, the Hague-based outfit features numerous “judges” hostile to Western traditions on God-given rights, rule of law, and economic freedom. Still, the stakes are extremely high.
“This may well be the most consequential case in the history of humanity,” said Special Envoy for Climate Change and Environment Ralph Regenvanu for the Republic of Vanuatu, the government that ostensibly led the charge to have the case heard.
Speaking to the court last month on its first day of oral hearings, Regenvanu outlined what his government was seeking in the ruling. “We look to the Court for recognition that the conduct which has already caused immense harm to my people and so many others is unlawful, that it must cease, and that its consequences must be repaired,” he said.
Strong Ruling
A variety of organizations, many funded by taxpayers, have been lobbying for the ICJ to rule that governments have a concrete legal obligation to suppress activities that produce emissions of CO2 (the gas of life, exhaled by all people) and other so-called greenhouse gases. Unspecified “legal consequences” are being threatened for those that refuse.
“An opinion from the Court could send a powerful message to States and other actors responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, emphasizing the urgent need for deep, rapid, and sustained reductions aimed at reaching the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” argued the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN), warning those who refuse.
Another group lobbying for a strong ruling went even further. “Clarification of the law by the ICJ in relation to climate change may pave the way to bring States to Court if they do not protect people and the planet from the impacts of the climate crisis or for causing the crisis in the first place,” claimed the far-left Center for International Environmental Law, which is proudly using environmental lawfare for what it calls “transformative change.”
Threat to Sovereignty
Critics of the whole process, though, are sounding the alarm about the implications of this case. Speaking to The New American, ClimateDeport.com publisher Marc Morano with the pro-market environmental group Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) warned that this was a major threat to sovereignty and liberty by globalists.
“Putting the ICJ in charge of determining nations’ financial liability for their contribution to climate change and what countries must do to fight climate change is genuinely bonkers,” explained Morano, often attacked by the media as the world’s top “denier” of the man-made warming movement.
“The globalists are pulling the puppet strings at the ICJ,” continued Morano, a former U.S. Senate staffer who has attended almost every UN climate summit for the last two decades.
And this is all just the tip of the iceberg if not stopped. “The World Economic Forum has already called on the ICJ to prosecute the crime of ‘Ecocide’ in Davos to prevent the ‘mass damage and destruction of nature’,” added Morano. “The entire goal of the Davos crowd is to turn you into a feudal-style serf where your overlords rule your life.”
In its presentation last month at the ICJ during the hearings in the case, governments from around the world pleaded with the judges to drop the hammer on the supposed “pollution” CO2 (known to serious scientists as the gas of life). Ironically, major oil and gas producers lobbied for restrictions as well, perhaps hoping to cut supply and boost prices.
Support From Biden
The Biden administration — a leading proponent of undermining Western economies to “save the climate” — urged the 15 self-styled judges at the “World Court” to issue a strong ruling outlining the supposed “duties” of national governments on the issue of global warming.
“The United States recognizes the climate crisis as one of the gravest challenges humanity has ever faced,” claimed Biden envoy Margaret Taylor, a legal advisor at the State Department, in her remarks before the court. She did not mention the surveys consistently showing most U.S. adults reject the man-made global-warming hypothesis altogether.
Still, the sky is falling, and only major government action at the international level will suffice to deal with it, Taylor continued.
“It is global in its causes, resulting from a wide variety of human activities worldwide that emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, including ‘super pollutants’ such as methane,” the Biden State Department lawyer claimed. “Such activities include not only the burning of fossil fuels for energy production but also agriculture, deforestation and industrial processes.”
The U.S. government is also open to the possibility of establishing a “new human right to a healthy environment” through the “established rules for the creation of international law,” added the Biden envoy. The thinking reflects the “progressive” view that rights come from government, not God, and that new “rights” to government limits on people’s freedom can simply be invented at will.
Taylor also made clear that the Biden administration stands solidly behind a broad array of dubious UN treaties, agreements, conventions, and policies known collectively as the UN climate “regime.” Still, the UN court’s coming interpretation of the agreements underpinning that regime will play a major role in global policy.
Pact for the Future
As The New American reported from the UN “Summit of the Future,” the UN and its members agreed in the “Pact for the Future” that all governments must submit to its rulings. “We will fulfill our obligation to comply with the decisions and uphold the mandate of the International Court of Justice,” states the Pact, adopted by the UN by “consensus” among its nearly 200 member governments.
Socialist Roots
The court, founded in 1945 under the UN Charter, was aimed primarily at settling disputes between national governments. Its 15 “judges” are elected by the UN General Assembly, a body often mocked as the “dictator’s club” where tyrants such as Kim Jong-un of North Korea and the communist regime in Cuba each get one vote just like the U.S. government. Adding insult to injury, the judges often come from corrupt and totalitarian societies where “law” is understood to be whatever the tyrant or oligarchy in power say.
Long before the UN was even founded, though, the Fabian Socialist movement in the United Kingdom was calling for a socialistic one-world government. A key part of its plan outlined in a committee report on “International Government” was the formation of an “International High Court for the decision of justiciable issues between Sovereign States.”
Endangered “Rights”
In a troubling indication of how the case may go, the so-called “European Court of Human Rights” ruled last year that government action against activities that produce CO2 (essentially anything and everything) were necessary. That is because “protection” from the “impacts of climate change” is a supposed “human right,” the kangaroo court found, citing the UN Paris Agreement and other international deals. Other international judicial bodies have made similar rulings.
At the UN “climate” summit in Egypt in December of 2022, “youth climate justice” leader Mert Taner Kumru told The New American that the self-styled “World Court” must offer a ruling on this because “human rights” are endangered by human CO2 emissions. He was one of many young people who had all-expenses paid trips to the summit to lobby for the UN agenda parroting the same rhetoric.
“What we want is to make it clear by an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice that the impacts of the climate crisis are being — with regards to our human rights — are being explained by the Court so that we can use this in national future cases, but also to explain and interpret the Paris Agreements in a better way so we can improve policies globally so we can actually aim for that 1.5 degrees maximum increase of temperature,” Kumru said, referring to the temperature increase that governments and UN-backed scientists claim is the upper tolerable limit before catastrophe. “We need an advisory opinion to actually bring climate justice to the courts and to the world.”
Asked tough questions about the science underpinning the agenda and the supposed solutions, Kumru deflected.
“International Law”
The ICJ case on climate was a response to a request by the UN General Assembly for the “court” to offer guidance on the issue and to “clarify” the “international law” on the issue. Multiple UN agreements, conventions, and other multilateral instruments were cited as sources of relevant law, despite many of those documents never mentioning climate or even the environment.
Almost 100 national governments and about a dozen international organizations participated in the oral hearings, with more than 90 written statements filed in the case. That makes it the largest ever in the world court’s history, according to the UN.
“Non-binding”
The ruling will officially be “non-binding.” However, multiple legal analysts have pointed out that this can be deceiving. It is true that the court cannot enforce its opinion on governments with arms. However, because the rulings are framed as an effort to “clarify” existing so-called international law, which globalists claim is in fact binding, there is major power behind them.
Multiple American state governments and activist groups are currently using state and federal courts to try to extort money from and ultimately destroy energy-producing firms. The coming ICJ ruling could play a role in that litigation. And multiple prominent U.S. jurists have called for incorporating international “court” rulings into domestic judicial processes.
Speaking to the UN News Center, ICJ Registrar Philippe Gautier also emphasized the significance of “advisory” rulings by the court. They have “an authoritative value and cannot be neglected,” he said.
The UN’s propaganda service echoed that view. “They carry great moral authority by what is considered the world’s highest court and the principal judicial body of the UN,” it explained about the advisory rulings in a report about the ongoing “climate” case.
The UN news agency added, “This opinion on climate change can help inform subsequent judicial proceedings such as domestic cases, influence the diplomatic process and will likely be cited in thousands of climate-driven lawsuits around the world.”