Liberty Unyielding
President Biden has agreed to pay climate reparations to third world countries, many of them run by corrupt dictators who siphon off foreign aid for their own benefit. The Associated Press reports that the “U.S. will pay up to $1 billion to compensate developing countries for global warming — but gas-guzzling China” — the world’s biggest polluter — “WON’T have to pay into global fund.” “The fund, negotiated at the UN’s COP27 Summit, was originally known as a ‘loss and damage’ fund and had been blocked by previous administrations.”
The countries that would receive reparations are mostly in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Many of these countries have already received billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid, as either economic or humanitarian assistance, in the past.
Third-world litigants will point to this agreement to say they they are entitled to compensation for billions or trillions more under “customary international law.” They will use this concession to try to sue American businesses or the U.S. for vastly more money than Biden has agreed to pay, based on the idea that the U.S. has now admitted it and its citizens are at fault. International tribunals and “human rights” bodies sometimes issue rulings based on “customary international law,” vague principles based on the international “consensus” of enlightened people across the globe.
