They just keep coming up with great ideas, eh?
We need a global environmental court – and we need it now
With temperatures set to dramatically exceed the critical 1.5°C limit of warming above pre-industrial levels, our planet is in a state of climate emergency. Our ability to withstand the environmental onslaught is being pushed to the brink, particularly in small island states like my home country of Trinidad and Tobago and other vulnerable nations.
Recognising this urgency, United Nations member states have requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the climate obligations of individual nations. Governments could use its advice to understand and legislate their own moral duties, but they aren’t legally bound…
OK, that’s all we’re getting from the New Scientist, but, the person who wrote it is Anthony Thomas Aquinas Carmona, the Former President of Trinidad and Tobago, who also wrote something similar for Newsweek back in the middle of February
The UN Must Establish the International Environmental Court Before It’s Too Late | Opinion
(Big snip)
While the ICJ can offer legal guidance to U.N. member states, its advisory opinions cannot be enforced. For that, we need an innovative new court with the power to adjudicate environmental issues when non-judicial means of settlement either fail or are unavailable.
I have long proposed that the U.N. should harness the ICJ’s opinion to trigger the creation of an International Environmental Court (IEC)—established using a statutory process similar to that which empowered the ICC to issue arrest warrants, prison sentences, and financial penalties.
Just as the Rome Statute awarded the ICC its jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression, a new statute could create a specialized IEC to handle environmental violations as outlined by the ICJ’s guidance.
This could also cement global treaties under international law, mandating the transition of words into action.
Cool, a global court of unaccountable people who can force their doomsday cult beliefs on every country, company, and individual. At least other cults aren’t trying to force Everyone to practice what they believe in.
Read: Climate Cult Now Wants Dedicated Global Climate Courts »