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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. The opinion opens a door for future claims by countries seeking reparations for climate-related harm. But while the ruling is a big global story, its legal effect on the U.S. is less clear. We study climate policies, law and solutions. Heres what you need to know about the ruling and its implications. Why island nations called for a formal opinion The ruling resulted from years of grassroots and youth-led organizing by Pacific Islanders. Supporters have called it a turning point for frontline communities everywhere. Small island states like Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Barbados and others across the Pacific and Caribbean are among the most vulnerable to climate change, yet they have contributed little to global emissions. For many of them, sea-level rise poses an existential threat. Some Pacific atolls sit just 1 to 2 meters above sea level and are slowly disappearing as waters rise. Saltwater intrusion threatens drinking water supplies and crops. Their economies depend on tourism, agriculture and fishing, all sectors easily disrupted by climate change. For example, coral reefs are bleaching more often and dying due to ocean warming and acidification, undermining fisheries, marine biodiversity and economic sectors such as tourism. When disasters hit, the cost of recovery often forces these countries to take on debt. Climate change also undermines their credit ratings and investor confidence, making it harder to get the money to finance adaptive measures. The Maldives, shown in a satellite image from 2020, has an average elevation of less than 5 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level. With limited land where people can live, the country has tried to build up new areas of its islands for housing. [Image: NASA Earth Observatory] Tuvalu and Kiribati have discussed digital nationhood and leasing land from other countries so their people can relocate while still retaining citizenship. Some projections suggest nations like the Maldives or Marshall Islands could become largely uninhabitable within decades. For these countries, sea-level rise is taking more than their land theyre losing their history and identity in the process. The idea of becoming climate refugees and separating people from their homelands can be culturally destructive, emotionally painful and politically fraught as they move to new countries. More than a nonbinding opinion The International Court of Justice, commonly referred to as the ICJ or World Court, can help settle disputes between states when requested, or it can issue advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized U.N. bodies such as the General Assembly or Security Council. The advisory opinion process allows its 15 judges to weigh in on abstract legal issues such as nuclear weapons or the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories without a formal dispute between states. While the courts advisory opinions are nonbinding, they can still have a powerful impact, both legally and politically. The rulings are considered authoritative statements regarding questions of international law. They often clarify or otherwise confirm existing legal obligations that are binding. What the court decided The ICJ was asked to weigh in on two questions in this case: What are the obligations of States under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases? What are the legal consequences under these obligations for States where they, by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system? In its 140-page opinion, the court cited international treaties and relevant scientific background to affirm that obligations to protect the environment are indeed a matter of international environmental law, international human rights law and general principles of state responsibility. The decision means that in the authoritative opinion of the international legal community, all countries are under an obligation to contribute to the efforts to reduce global greenhouse emissions. To the second question, the court found that in the event of a breach of any such obligation, three additional obligations arise: The country in breach of its obligations must stop its polluting activity, which would mean excess greenhouse gas emissions in this case. It must ensure that such activities do not occur in the future. It must make reparations to affected states in terms of cleanup, monetary payment and pologies. The court affirmed that all countries have a legal duty under customary international law, which refers to universal rules that arise from common practices among states, to prevent harm to the climate. It also clarified that individual countries can be held accountable, even in a crisis caused by many countries and other entities. And it emphasized that countries that have contributed the most to climate change may bear greater responsibility for repairing the damage under an international law doctrine called common but differentiated responsibility, which is commonly found in international treaties concerning the environment. While the ICJs opinion doesnt assign blame to specific countries or trigger direct reparations, it may provide support for future legal action in both international and national courts. What does the ICJ opinion mean for the US? 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. Still, the courts opinion sends a clear message: All countries are legally obligated to prevent climate harm and cannot escape responsibility simply because they arent the only nation to blame. The unanimous ruling is particularly remarkable given the current hostile political climate in the United States and other industrial nations around climate change and responses to it. It represents a particularly forceful statement by the international community that the responsibility to ensure the health of the global environment is a legal duty held by the entire world. The takeaway The ICJs advisory opinion marks a turning point in the global effort to hold countries responsible for climate change. Vulnerable countries now have a more concrete, legally grounded base to claim rights and press for accountability against historical and ongoing climate harm including financial claims. How it will be used in the coming years remains unclear, but the opinion gives small island states in particular a powerful narrative and a legal tool set. Lauren Gifford is a faculty of ecosystem science & sustainability, and a director at the Soil Carbon Solutions Center at Colorado State University. Daimeon Shanks-Dumont is a doctoral candidate in law and social policy at the University of California, Berkeley. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
A federal appeals court has upheld a jury verdict condemning Google’s Android app store as an illegal monopoly, clearing the way for a federal judge to enforce a potentially disruptive shakeup that’s designed to give consumers more choices.The unanimous ruling issued Thursday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivers a double-barreled legal blow for Google, which has been waylaid in three separate antitrust trials that resulted in different pillars of its internet empire being declared as domineering scofflaws monopolies since late 2023.The unsuccessful appeal represents a major victory for video game maker Epic Games, which launched a legal crusade targeting Google’s Play Store for Android apps and Apple’s iPhone app store nearly five years ago in an attempt to bypass exclusive payment processing systems that charged 15% to 30% commissions on in-app transactions.The jury’s December 2023 rebuke of Google’s app store for Android-powered smartphones began a cascade of setbacks that includes monopoly judgements against the company’s ubiquitous search engine last year and the technology underlying its digital ad network earlier this year.Although not as lucrative as Google’s search engine or ad system, the Play Store for Android apps has long been a gold mine that generated billions of dollars in annual revenue by taking a 15% to 30% cut from in-app transactions funneled through the company’s own payment processing system.Following a month-long trial, a nine-person jury determined that Google had rigged its system to thwart alternative app stores from offering better deals to consumers and software developers. That verdict resulted in U.S. District Judge James Donato ordering Google to tear down digital walls shielding the Play Store from competition, triggering the company’s appeal to overturn the jury’s finding and void the judge’s mandated shakeup.But a three-judge panel that heard Google’s appeal in February rejected its lawyers’ contention that Donato erred by allowing the case to be determined by a jury that deviated from the market definition outlined by another federal judge who mostly sided with Apple in Epic’s case against the iPhone maker’s app store.Epic’s lawsuit “was replete with evidence that Google’s anticompetitive conduct entrenched its dominance, causing the Play Store to benefit from network effects,” the judges wrote in the decision.The ruling “will significantly harm user safety, limit choice, and undermine the innovation that has always been central to the Android ecosystem,” Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland said in a statement.Unless Google can extend the enforcement delay placed on Donato’s order issued last October, the company will have to begin an overhaul that includes making the Play Store’s entire library of more than 2 million Android apps available to would-be rivals and also help distribute the alternative options. Google has argued that the required revisions will raise privacy and security risks by exposing consumers to scam artists and hackers masquerading as legitimate app stores.But Epic’s lawyers have ridiculed Google’s warnings about the changes as scare tactics in a desperate attempt to protect the fortunes of its corporate parent Alphabet Inc.Although Epic fell short in its attempt to have the iPhone’s app store declared a monopoly, that case resulted in a judge issuing an order that required Apple to surrender exclusive control over the payment processing of in-app transactions and allow links to alternative systems without collecting a commission.Besides being hit with Donato’s order, Google still faces further trouble ahead that could leave an even bigger dent in its finances.As part of the effort to address Google’s illegal monopoly in search, a federal judge is weighing a proposal by the U.S. Justice Department that would require the sale of its Chrome web browser and ban the multibillion dollar deals that company has been making with Apple and others to lock-in its search engine as the main gateway to the internet.Google is also facing a proposed breakup of its advertising technology as part of the countermeasures to its monopoly in that business. A trial on that proposal is scheduled to begin in September. Michael Liedtke, AP Technology Writer
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Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on Friday lost their bid to overturn a ruling that their COVID-19 vaccine infringed one of Moderna’s patents at London’s Court of Appeal. Last year, the High Court ruled that one of Moderna’s patents relating to the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which underpinned its COVID-19 vaccine, was valid and that Pfizer and BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine had infringed it, meaning Moderna is entitled to damages in relation to sales after March 2022. The High Court also ruled that the other Moderna patent under challenge in the case was invalid. Moderna was refused permission to appeal against that decision. But Pfizer and BioNTech were granted permission to appeal in an attempt to try and invalidate Moderna’s second patent and appealed earlier this month, arguing Moderna’s developments of mRNA technology were obvious developments of previous work, rendering the patent invalid. Judge Richard Arnold, however, rejected Pfizer and BioNTech’s appeal. Pfizer and BioNTech said in a joint statement that the decision “does not change our unwavering stance that this patent is invalid” and the companies will seek to appeal. “This decision has no immediate impact on Pfizer and BioNTech or Comirnaty,” the companies added. Moderna did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Friday’s decision in the latest ruling in the legal dispute between the two sides over their competing vaccines, which helped save millions of lives during the pandemic. The companies have also been involved in proceedings in Germanywhere a court ruled in Moderna’s favour in Marchthe United States Patent Office, which held that two Moderna COVID-19 vaccine patents were invalid, and elsewhere. Sam Tobin, Reuters
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