CarnwathA report in the U.K. daily The Telegraph indicates that an international panel of judges is planning to prohibit talk of “climate skepticism.” The article by Christopher Booker said the legal change was endorsed by Prince Charles of the U.K., and would revolutionize the concept of free speech once and for all.
“Including senior judges and lawyers from across the world, the three-day conference on ‘Climate Change and the Law’ was staged in London’s Supreme Court. It was funded, inter alia, by the Supreme Court itself, the UK government and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP),” Booker reported.
“As one of the two UN sponsors of its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UNEP has been one of the main drivers of alarm over global warming for 40 years. The organiser and chairman of the conference was the Supreme Court judge Lord Carnwath, a fervent believer in man-made climate change, who has worked with the Prince of Wales for more than 20 years, and with UNEP since 2002.”
The keynote speech for the event was given by Philippe Sands, a lawyer who works with former U.K. First Lady Cherie Blair and a professor of law at University College, London. “Since it is now unlikely that the world will agree in Paris to a legally binding treaty to limit the rise in global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees C from pre-industrial levels, his theme was that it is now time for the courts to step in, to enforce this as worldwide law,” Booker reported.
Sands’ idea certainly elevates the concept of “judge-made law” to a new level. Now judges apparently don’t even need to have a case before them to rule on interpretations of law; they can choose to act like legislators, and make up their own laws, as they see fit. The due process implications are astounding here as are questions of separation of powers and independence of the judiciary.
