Essay by Eric Worrall
“The Inter-American Court … requires … joint production of climate knowledge between scientists and the custodians of such knowledge’ …”
In 2025 I wrote an article about how the Inter-American court ruled the USA has an obligation to fund climate science.
But I clearly missed the entertaining part.
July 21, 2026
International Courts Against the Defunding of Climate Science? Revisiting the ICJ’s Climate Change Advisory Opinion
Written by Anna Saunders
Introduction
The first eighteen months of the second Trump administration have witnessed a sustained assault on scientific infrastructures enabling understanding of anthropogenic climate change. This has taken the form of cuts to national science agencies; freezes and dramatic reductions in grants to universities; and attempts to dismantle observation arrays and crucial monitoring stations. It has also extended to research jointly conducted with partners in other states, who have received questionnairesrequiring them to disclose whether their work involves ‘climate’ or ‘environmental justice’. Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin has described the goal of the administration as ‘driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion’.
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Obligations to ‘actively pursue’ science as a corollary of prevention
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Best available science informs the conduct to be undertaken in performance of the obligation of prevention, which ‘may … become more demanding in the light of new scientific and technological knowledge’ (at [284]). As Katalin Sulyok has observed, scientific knowledge, and the work of the IPCC, also played a ‘central role … in how the Court made legal sense of the climate crisis’, and in the newly reiterated legal significance of the 1.5C temperature goal. Given this centrality, it is in retrospect not entirely surprising that the Court would pronounce on obligations on states to produce climate science, as well as to attend to its consequences.
…Here, the Opinion of the Inter-American Court on Climate Emergency and Human Rights offers a significant contrast. Like the ICJ, the Inter-American Court extended existing obligations in respect of science to the climate situation, stating that states must ‘encourage the development of science in relation to key aspects of the climate emergency’ (at [474]). In doing so, the Inter-American Court recognised the specifically plural nature of this obligation, since ‘scientific knowledge coexists with other forms of knowledge, such as local, traditional and indigenous knowledge’ (at [476]). The Inter-American Court also recognised the particular role of Indigenous women in ‘preserving and transmitting’ these forms of knowledge (at [482]). Significantly for the interpretation of the obligation of prevention, it found that the procedural dimension of the right requires ‘integration of the best available science with local, traditional and indigenous knowledge, and … the joint production of climate knowledge between scientists and the custodians of such knowledge’ (emphasis added, at [480]).
Read more: https://www.ejiltalk.org/international-courts-against-the-defunding-of-climate-science-revisiting-the-icjs-advisory-opinion-on-climate-change/
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I’ve written to President Trump asking for his response to this claim he has an international legal obligation to fund climate science to be jointly produced with custodians of traditional or indigenous knowledge, I’ll let you all know if I receive a reply.
Obviously some adaption to current climate science processes will be required to embrace this obligation. Space will need to be allocated in research establishments for any ritual observances required to produce climate science. I see a great opportunity for alarmist climate scientists to explore other belief systems. And if this obligation is enforced in any form, I’m sure looking forward to reporting the outcome of that joint production of scientific product.
Then there’s loony tune knowledge.
So let’s see a clear and unbiased exposition of “indigenous knowledge or belief”. Courts and others speak of this in big generalities. To be of value, if any, we would need a systematic and unromanticized catalogue of indigenous knowledge. Does this exist? I have never seen it.
Indigenous people just like modern people have observed nature and natural processes, drawn some conclusions or inferences, sometimes correct and sometimes incorrect, and then attempted to generalize from observation to practice. Neither the ancients nor the moderns invent or create these principles, they merely recognize the existence of principles that long predate the observers’ existence.
I expect that much indigenous folklore or evidence from archaeology has already been identified and researched as to its veracity and practical utility. Name something new or novel that has not been examined. International “courts” or politicians who speak of indigenous knowledge are simply ignorant or showing their political biases.
The Inter-American Court … requires … joint production of climate
knowledgecrap between (so-called) scientists and thecustodiansspreaders of suchknowledgecrap …”There, fixed.
Indigenous knowledge.
Ok. A few thousand years ago, in ancient Greece, there was a pantheon of deities, each with a special purpose, including hurricanes and tides, lightning, fire, and even the movement of the sun and the moon.
Shall we include the indigenous knowledge of our Greek (and Roman and many others) ancestry in this encyclopedia of climate crisis knowledge?
Or perhaps we should just revert to the Judeo/Christian/Moslem belief that God, all powerful, all knowing, working in ways we cannot comprehend, is actually in charge?
I find is most curious that some of the most devote elevate humans above the God that created them. Curious, isn’t it. Oh, just ask the Pope about this and you will likely get a Harris word salad.
I am sure there is indigenous knowledge we have yet to record and process. Lore, natural observations, and so forth. Like aspirin, it should be studied to discover anything useful.
The most important indigenous knowledge is: CO2 and CH4 are nothing to worry about.
How can I claim that? They had open fires and farting animals all over the world and were not worried about those (except possibly the smell).
Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no difference between “climate science” and raw superstition or “climate scientists” and witch doctors.
Oh please, priests or shamans.
🙂
Last I checked the woman are all wearing clothing made on machines with products that come mostly from oil wells not natural fibers none of which existed in the Americas prior to the coming of the white man except llama wool. Knowledge of how to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, to pull teeth with a stone knife, fix a broken leg by ignoring the injury, surgery with a stone knife for a kidney stone and more is not in much demand by any native, whatever that means to the left. We will simply ignore the natives here in 1492 had all stolen the land from the folks here before them by war , rape and rampage.
At first I thought this was satire but no, the author is a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist academic who believes in all this. She is a lawyer and should know that the USA is not a signatory and the Inter-America Court has no jurisdiction in the USA.
The States that have ratified the American Convention are: Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, and Uruguay. Venezuela and others have recently opted out but my, what sterling exemplars and paragons of human rights and good governance these countries are.