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The UN’s top court starts weighing penalties against nations defying climate mandates, though its non-binding rulings lack enforcement power.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will begin consideration Monday of a host of proposed penalties the U.N. can implement against countries that defy diktats on protecting the environment. [emphasis, links added]
Activists hope the legal opinion from the ICJ judges will have far-reaching consequences in the fight against “climate change” in a matter that first came before it in 2023, as Breitbart News reported.
But others note the U.N.-backed request for a non-binding advisory opinion will have no impact at all– and it could take the U.N.’s top court months, or even years, to deliver as counties like the U.S. – which does not formally recognize the organization – go their own way.
The ICJ is the United Nations’ top judicial body.
It only takes cases between state actors, meaning countries can be parties to lawsuits and participate in trials, but individuals and corporations cannot.
It has no enforcement mechanism, so those implicated in its rulings often simply ignore its existence.
The hearings at the Peace Palace come days after a bitterly negotiated climate deal at the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan, which decreed that developed countries must provide at least $300 billion a year by 2035 for climate finance.
The U.N. General Assembly last year adopted a resolution in which it referred two key questions to the ICJ judges, AFP reports.
First, what obligations did states have under international law to protect the Earth’s climate system from greenhouse gas emissions?
Second, what are the legal consequences under these obligations, where states, “by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment?”
The second question was also linked to the legal responsibilities of states for harm caused to small, more vulnerable countries and their populations.
Reuters reports climate litigation is on the rise and earlier this year, Europe’s top human rights court ruled that the Swiss government had violated the rights of its citizens by failing to do enough to combat climate change.
But it also rejected two other cases, pointing to the complexities of the growing wave of climate lawfare.
Read more at Breitbart
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