Pirate's Cove

Hint: not much

The World Court just ruled countries can be held liable for climate change damage – what does that mean for the US?

The International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion in July 2025 declaring that all countries have a legal obligation to protect and prevent harm to the climate.

The court, created as part of the United Nations in 1945, affirmed that countries must uphold existing international laws related to climate change and, if they fail to act, could be held responsible for damage to communities and the environment. (giant snip)

In the U.S., this advisory opinion is unlikely to have much legal impact, despite a long-standing constitutional principle that “international law is part of U.S. law.”

U.S. courts rarely treat international law that has not been incorporated into domestic law as binding. And the U.S. has not consented to ICJ jurisdiction in previous climate cases.

Contentious cases before international tribunals can be brought by one country against another, but they require the consent of all the countries involved. So there is little chance that the United States’ responsibility for climate harms will be adjudicated by the World Court anytime soon.

Really, the only “long-standing constitutional principle” is when a treaty is signed and ratified by the US Senate. International law is not part of US law. Only treaties, but, that doesn’t mean the US is going to follow all the laws passed by other countries, and, damned sure not an unhinged court of which the US is no party to.

But, the ruling does make the climate cult lawyers happy

(Climate Home News) Among the ICJ pronouncements, its judges said government activities that support the expansion of fossil fuels – including by private actors – may represent an “internationally wrongful act”. They also said that historically large polluters could be liable to pay reparations for the damage caused by their contributions to the climate crisis.

In US courts, the advisory opinion “will strengthen the claims made by climate activists suing the federal and state governments, and also strengthen the claims of states and cities that are suing fossil fuel companies to claim damages”, said Ashfaq Khalfan, director of climate justice at Oxfam America. (snip)

Phillips of the UCS argued it would be impossible for the US government to ignore the ICJ opinion entirely. “Regardless of what their feelings are, they can’t dismiss this ruling just because they don’t like it,” she told Climate Home. “[It] has shown that countries around the world are bound by international law to address climate change.”

Well, yes we can. I just find it interesting that the cult is super-intent on using lawsuits to force people to comply with the Beliefs that the Warmists won’t practice themselves, nor can get through in legislatures.

Read: Say, What Does The ICJ’s Climate Cult Ruling Mean For The US? »

Can you guess why, exactly, these uber-lefties are upset (technically, they are uber-right, out in the Authoritarian model, but, let’s not confuse things)?

Australia’s climate visa lottery model sets a troubling precedent

Yvonne Su is Associate Professor, Department of Equity Studies, at York University

A new era of climate migration is here, and Australia wants to be at the forefront. When the applications opened for a new ‘climate visa’ to Australia, more than half of Tuvalu’s population of 10,643 applied for it. As the first country in the world to likely become uninhabitable due to climate change, Tuvalu is facing an existential crisis.

The offer? A mere 280 spots a year, selected by lottery. Billed as a landmark agreement and a forward-looking climate adaptation strategy, the scheme was hailed as generous, humanitarian and innovative. But it also sets a troubling precedent.

I had to include that first line. Of course she’s in “Equity Studies”. Anyhow, the number of spots should be really zero. Anyone let in is going to demand that the government, and citizens of Australia, give them everything. That they change for the lottery winners. Because They Are Owed

Lotteries feel fair. They sidestep messy debates about who is most deserving, most at risk, or most responsible. But in doing so, they flatten complex realities. Climate change does not roll dice. It follows decades of underinvestment, colonially imposed infrastructures, and the exploitation of natural and human resources.

For Tuvalu, a small island nation whose carbon emissions are negligible but whose territory is disappearing into the sea, the climate crisis is not a random event. It is a result of choices made elsewhere.

The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union is, on the surface, a humanitarian gesture. But the mechanics reveal much more complicated political manoeuvring. Lotteries depoliticize climate displacement. They reduce it to a numbers game, where the line between inclusion and exclusion is drawn by chance, not accountability.

Depoliticize. Huh. It’s like I’ve been saying for over 20 years: this is not about science, but, far-left politics.

Anyway, this is a long, whiny cult screed, and this is her other point

If climate lotteries become a best practice to pacify populations facing future displacement, we risk turning migration into a series of humanitarian sweepstakes. We ask the world’s most vulnerable to play fair while the game itself remains rigged. For the losers to accept their fate because luck didn’t fall in their favour.

In other words, she wants them all let in. Surprise?

Read: Warmists Super Upset Australia Is Having A Climate Lottery »