Summary: The International Court of Justice has suggested nations could be held liable for historic greenhouse gas emissions, opening the door to lawsuits over centuries of industrial activity. Yet this approach risks punishing the very innovations that lifted billions out of poverty and advanced human health and flourishing. Lasting progress on climate challenges will come not from courtroom battles, but from technological solutions and continued economic development.

The International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion purporting to establish legal grounds that would allow nations to sue one another over climate damages represents judicial overreach that ignores economic history and threatens global development. While the opinion was undeniably legally adventurous, the framework it envisages would be practically unworkable as well as economically destructive.

The ICJ’s ruling suggests countries can be held liable for historical emissions of planet-warming gases. That creates an accounting nightmare that no legal system can resolve. How does one calculate damages from coal burned in Manchester in 1825 versus emissions from a Beijing power plant in 2025? How does one stack up the harm caused by a warming world against the benefits of industrialization?

Britain began large-scale coal combustion during the Industrial Revolution, when atmospheric CO₂ concentrations were 280 parts per million and climate science did not exist. Holding Britain liable for actions taken without knowledge of consequences violates basic principles of jurisprudence. The same applies to the United States, whose early industrialization occurred during an era when maximizing economic output was considered unambiguously beneficial to human welfare.

Critics of historical emissions ignore what those emissions purchased. British coal combustion powered textile mills that clothed much of the world, steam engines that revolutionized transportation, and factories that mass-produced goods previously available only to elites. American industrialization followed, creating assembly lines, electrical grids, and chemical processes that form the backbone of modern civilization.

These developments were not zero-sum exercises in resource extraction. They created knowledge, infrastructure, and institutions that benefited everyone. The steam engine led to internal combustion engines, which enabled mechanized agriculture that now feeds 8 billion people. Coal-powered steel production made possible skyscrapers, bridges, and the infrastructure that supports modern cities, where most humans now live longer, healthier lives than their ancestors.

The data on human welfare improvements since industrialization began are explicit. Global life expectancy increased from approximately 29 years in 1800 to 73 years today. Infant mortality rates fell from over 40 percent to under 3 percent. Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $2.15 per day in purchasing power parity terms, declined from over 80 percent of the global population in 1800 to under 10 percent today.

Nutrition improved dramatically. Caloric availability per person has increased by roughly 40 percent since 1960 alone, while food prices relative to wages fell consistently. Height, a reliable indicator of childhood nutrition, increased significantly across all regions. Educational attainment expanded from literacy rates below 10 percent globally in 1800 to over 85 percent today.

These improvements correlate directly with energy consumption and industrial development. Countries that industrialized earliest experienced these welfare gains first, then transmitted the knowledge and technology globally. The antibiotics developed in American and European laboratories now save lives worldwide. The agricultural techniques pioneered in industrialized nations now feed populations that would otherwise face starvation.

The International Court of Justice’s liability framework threatens to undermine the very mechanisms that created these welfare improvements. Innovation requires investment, which requires confidence in property rights and legal stability. If successful economic development subjects countries to retroactive liability, the incentive structure tilts away from growth and toward stagnation.

Consider current developing nations. Under this legal framework, should India or Nigeria limit their industrial development to avoid future liability? Should they forgo the coal and natural gas that powered Western development? That creates a perverse situation where the legal system penalizes the exact processes that lifted billions from poverty.

The framework also ignores technological solutions. The same innovative capacity that created the Industrial Revolution is now producing renewable energy technologies, carbon capture systems, and efficiency improvements that address climate concerns without sacrificing development. Market incentives and technological progress offer more promise than legal blame assignment.

Which emissions count as legally actionable? All anthropogenic CO₂ remains in the atmosphere for centuries, making every emission since 1750 potentially relevant. Should liability begin with James Watt’s steam engine improvements in 1769? With the first coal-fired power plant? With Henry Ford’s assembly line? The temporal boundaries are arbitrary and politically motivated rather than scientifically determined.

Similarly, which countries qualify as defendants? The largest current emitters include China and India, whose recent emissions dwarf historical American and British totals. China alone now produces more CO₂ annually than the United States and Europe combined. Any coherent liability framework must address current emissions, not just historical ones.

And where would the money go? This aspect of the case was brought up by Vanuatu. If the island nation receives compensation from the UK and the US, should it not be obliged to pay the British and the Americans for a plethora of life-enhancing Western discoveries, including electricity, vaccines, the telephone, radio, aviation, internet, refrigeration, and navigation systems?

Climate adaptation and mitigation require technological innovation and economic growth, not legal warfare between nations. The countries that industrialized first possess the technological capacity and institutional knowledge to develop solutions to today’s problems. Channeling resources toward litigation rather than innovation represents a misallocation that benefits lawyers while harming global welfare.

The ICJ opinion reflects wishful thinking rather than practical policy. Legal frameworks cannot repeal economic reality or reverse the historical processes that created modern prosperity. Instead of seeking retroactive justice for emissions that enabled human flourishing, policymakers should focus on technologies and institutions that sustain development while addressing environmental concerns. The alternative is a world where legal systems punish success and innovation while offering nothing constructive in return.

The original version of this article was published in National Review on 8/12/2025.

“Amazon.com Inc.’s Audible will begin inviting a select group of US-based audiobook narrators to train artificial intelligence on their voices, the clones of which can then be used to make audiobook recordings. The effort, which kicks off this week, is designed to add more audiobooks to the service, quickly and cheaply — and to welcome traditional narrators into the evolving world of audiobook automation which, to date, many have regarded warily.”

From Bloomberg.

Summary: Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, women’s rights and freedom of expression in China have faced severe repression, with censorship stifling discourse on gender and punishing outspoken female writers. Periods of greater political liberty saw flourishing women’s literature that challenged traditional roles and highlighted women’s ambition. Despite the current crackdown, the resilience of female writers persists through underground literary communities.

For women’s rights activists in China, the 2020s seem to be the worst time ever. Under Xi’s presidency, censorship of public opinions has peaked, including that of writings about gender equality. Journalist Huang Xueqin, who published investigations on #MeToo cases, for example, was incarcerated for “subversion.”

Literature also has suffered a bigger setback.  Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) outlawed any negative commentary on its legitimacy, writers have had to sacrifice their artistry for safety. Those who hold on to their commitment to the arts are banished from the publication world. Yan Geling, one of the most famous Chinese female writers of the 21st century, was banned from all press for critiquing Xi’s treatment of women.

However, the environment for female writers in China has not always been oppressive. Rather, the extent of women’s cultural contributions has always been negatively correlated with the governmental control of individual liberty.

The first surge of women’s writing in modern China was during the 1920–30s, when the nation was under the governance of the Nationalist Party of China (NPC). Despite the wartime turmoil and the infamously corrupt NPC government, society at the time was highly liberal. At the turn of the century, the traditional academic community was replaced by a new generation of intellectuals, most of whom had received Western education. In 1915, these young scholars started the New Cultural Movement. The movement fought against feudalism and advocated for democracy, liberalism, individual freedom, and equality for women. By the 1920s, Chinese society had incubated a myriad of liberal writers, artists, and academics, including some of the most important female literati in modern China, such as Zhang Eileen, Ding Ling, and Xiao Hong. Be it Zhang’s Love in a Fallen City, Ding’s Diary of Miss Sophie, or Xiao’s The Field of Life and Death, their works thematized the experiences of “new women.” Though clenched between the lingering feudalist customs and the transitioning new era, they continued to pursue independence and freedom.

The liberal environment did not survive, as what followed was the establishment of Communist China and, subsequently, the 10-year Cultural Revolution—a time when the government, rather than the people, defined how an individual should think and feel.

Donned the “Stinky Ninth Class,” the literati were considered “spiritually unclean.” During the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art, Mao Zedong announced that all works of art and literature must extol the Communist regime and serve only the interests of the workers, peasants, and soldiers. Literature, once the epitome of free speech, became a vessel for CCP propaganda.

The female writers, who had thrived in early 20th-century China, were deprived of their voices. Many were tortured to death by the Red Guards; those who survived had to relocate abroad. Ding, for example, was banished to the northern deserts, and Zhang immigrated to the United States. Slogans popularized by the government such as “whatever men can do, women can do too” ostensibly supported gender equality but, in truth, constituted an attempt to masculinize women. This propaganda masked the government’s rejection of women as an independent gender that had its unique history and needs.

The turning point occurred when Deng Xiaoping took over the presidency and introduced the “Reform and Opening Up” policies in the 1980s. He reinstated a significant degree of economic and political liberty by allowing foreign investment. Meanwhile, he ended Mao’s state surveillance and class struggle propaganda and, until the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, supported free speech.

The transformed political environment revived literature. The public’s suppressed yearning to express themselves in the previous 10 years burst forth in the form of a literary mania. Writers and poets, who used to be despised by all, were idolized. Thousands of people swarmed into auditoriums to attend poetry readings, and when they ended, rushed to the stage in tears and hugged the poets; some even kneeled and kissed the poets’ shoes. As a result, the female writers were able to rebuild their community and eventually channeled the “Golden Age” of women’s writing. Poets such as Shu Ting and Zhai Yongming and writers like Wang Anyi and Zong Pu, through avant-garde writing styles, told stories of modern women’s tenacity amid the political turmoil and the trials they underwent trying to obtain equality in a new time. They presented to society an image of women being strong-willed and ambitious, overturning the traditional perception of them as weak and dependent.

Though the current illiberalism in China is restricting women’s freedom to express themselves, the resilience that persisted through a history of constant changes and frequent catastrophes has grown stronger. An “underground” literary community came into being. Women organized off-the-books writing groups, book clubs, and literature societies, where they admired women’s writings over the past century. Women’s literary culture might be declining in China, a good reminder that progress is not irreversible, but as long as the predecessor’ legacy is still cherished, it will persevere.

“In 1820, only 1 in 10 people over the age of 15 could read. Today, the corresponding global literacy rate — the share of adults aged 15 and older who can read and write — is 87%. That means more than 5 billion people can read and write today, compared to fewer than 100 million two centuries ago.”

From Our World in Data.