July 25, 2025
Our previous editorial we bemoaned how climate change warriors have been silent over the past several months. They have not been out front blowing the horn on CO2 and greenhouse gasses.
Well, this time they don’t need to say anything more. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has done the talking for them. This is what any climate change and environmental advocate could have wanted, in that of the ICJ’s advisory that countries can be held liable in court for damages to the environment. We have called for this in the past before in this magazine and it is only right the ICJ comes to the forefront and make these environmental infractions a serious matter on the world stage.
The ruling is much welcomed for small island developing states. They need the additional support when they challenge larger countries in the international court for environmental infractions. This is just but a first step.
The ideal thing in the long term is to stop larger countries from doing any further damage to the environment altogether. We hope we can have some safeguards put in place world wide. There is no body that can guarantee safeguards in every single jurisdiction that would have the capacity to mandate top quality, environmental safeguards. The world is not set up to a point where we can tell individual countries to do something they don’t want to do. They have to be penalized. The ICJ is providing some additional mechanism for punitive damages to be entertained.