This year, Earth Overshoot Day fell on 25 July—the date by which humanity has already used up more resources than the planet can regenerate in an entire year. Two days earlier, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a historic ruling: states are legally obliged to stop this planetary overshoot, and to hold those responsible to account. In effect, the world’s highest court has confirmed what movements across the world have long insisted: the climate crisis is not just a political failure. It is an economic and a legal one. And the system driving it—capitalism—is, by every meaningful measure, illegal.

In an unanimous advisory opinion issued on 23 July, the 15 judges of the ICJ found that: The 1.5°C limit is not just a target—it is a legal threshold; all states have binding legal obligations to prevent “significant harm” to the environment; fossil fuel production, consumption, and subsidies may constitute “internationally wrongful acts”; and wealthy countries have additional legal responsibilities to lead the fight against climate change.

Importantly, the Court affirmed that climate inaction is a breach not only of environmental treaties but of general international law and human rights law. In the words of Professor Jorge Viñuales of Cambridge University, the Court “essentially sided with the Global South and small island developing states.”

This ruling is the result of a courageous initiative launched by the Republic of Vanuatu—a small island nation on the frontlines of climate collapse. Their legal team included PI Council member Julian Aguon, a human rights lawyer and Indigenous Chamorro advocate, who helped shape the legal arguments presented to the Court.

Writing earlier this year, Aguon described the case not just as a legal action, but as a moral stand by communities that “have not contributed meaningfully to climate change but are bearing the brunt of its impacts.” His words now carry the weight of international law.

Responding to the judges’ opinion, Aguon said, “business as usual is over. A new era of climate accountability is upon us.” Climate justice is no longer a demand. It is a legal imperative.

The ICJ ruling is a challenge to the economic system driving planetary destruction. A system where fossil fuels receive $7 trillion in annual subsidies, where environmental harm is treated as “externalities,” and where the pursuit of profit overrides the survival of people and planet.

By declaring that promoting the production and consumption of fossil fuels may be unlawful, the Court has handed movements across the world a new legal tool—and a powerful narrative: those who pollute, plunder, and profit are not just immoral. They are criminals.

That’s why this week, we say: Capitalism is illegal.

And we act accordingly.

Latest from the Movement

Strike in Kenya: The Workers Will Not Be Moved

A strike by warehouse and port workers in Kenya has entered its second week. The workers’ demands—for a living wage, workplace safety, union recognition, and an end to exploitation—have been met not with justice, but with repression. As employers and police attempt to intimidate and divide, the workers stand firm. “Either the capitalists yield,” declared PI member the Communist Party Marxist Kenya (CPMK) National Chairperson Mwaivu Kaluka, “or they face an indefinite shut-down of their exploitative enterprises.”

The strike is not just a labour dispute—it is a front in the global class war. The illegal detention and reported torture of three militant organisers—Baraza Wechuli, Julius Owino, and Obwonyo—has exposed the state’s role in defending capital through violence.

Starvation deepens, Handala seized

As famine takes hold across Gaza, with the UN warning that recent Israeli-approved aid is “far from enough to stop starvation,” Israel has escalated its blockade by intercepting and detaining the Handala, a humanitarian ship carrying 5,500 tonnes of aid to the besieged Strip. The vessel—organised by the Freedom Flotilla—was forcibly diverted by the Israeli navy in international waters and its crew detained.

Israeli soldiers arrested in Belgium

In a landmark move, two Israeli soldiers have been arrested in Belgium, facing accusations of war crimes committed during Israel’s assault on Gaza. The arrests follow a complaint filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), marking a significant step in the global effort to hold perpetrators of the Gaza genocide accountable.

Art of the Week

Robin White (Ngāti Awa, 1946, Te Puke, Aotearoa New Zealand) is known for her screen-printing, painting, and collaborative works on Tapa cloth. She is from a community of pacifist artists who fled to rural NZ in the 1970s to live meagre remote lifestyles. She is recognised for her landscapes painted during this time, depicting the farmed hills, simple colonial buildings, and stoic locals of British and Pacific descent.

White turned to the practice of Tapa in the 1980s when her family was based on the remote Pacific atoll of Kiribati, the first country threatened to be submerged by sea level rise. Tapa involves a collective laborious transformation of bark into cloth, upon which natural dyes are applied. The geometric forms in the work, which is almost three meters wide, represent the sea. In 2013, President Tong spoke of climate-change-induced sea level rise as "inevitable".