After the August 2026 floods in Nepal, which the authors attribute largely to climate change, the article argues that victims in the Tibet–Nepal border districts could follow plaintiffs in Europe and the U.S. and sue large private greenhouse-gas emitters in their home courts.

• The causation problem: an emitter’s failure to cut emissions only adds to global cumulative GHGs. Harm therefore reaches victims diffusely and through other factors such as exposure, vulnerability and resilience.
• Identifying a specific victim group: people in the Trishuli and Bhote Koshi basins have faced Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) for three decades. This sets them apart from the general population and gives them standing.
• Imminence of risk: research on the Tibet Autonomous Region shows glacial lakes growing in area and number since 2010. This, the authors suggest, may meet the legal threshold of an imminent catastrophe.
• Judicial trend: although there is no binding precedent, courts are increasingly aware of the duties of large emitters. Litigation is therefore worth pursuing even if victory is uncertain.

• GLOF: a sudden release of water when a moraine- or ice-dammed glacial lake breaches its dam. It may be triggered by an avalanche, landslide, earthquake or heavy rain.
• Trishuli and Bhote Koshi rivers originate in Tibet and cross into Nepal. Both are tributaries of the larger Gandaki (Narayani) and Koshi systems that flow into the Ganga. A GLOF upstream in Tibet can strike Nepali valleys with very little warning.
• ICIMOD’s 2023 HI-WISE assessment found that Hindu Kush Himalaya glaciers lost mass about 65% faster in 2011–2020 than in the previous decade. It projected losses of up to 80% of volume by 2100 under high-emission pathways.
• Indian parallels: the Kedarnath disaster (2013), the Chamoli (Rishiganga) flood (2021), and the South Lhonak GLOF in Sikkim (October 2023), which breached the Teesta-III dam.

• Inter-State regime: the UNFCCC (1992) rests on Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC). Article 8 of the Paris Agreement (2015) recognises loss and damage, but the accompanying COP decision (Decision 1/CP.21, para 51) states that it provides no basis for liability or compensation.
• Loss and damage finance: the Warsaw International Mechanism (COP19, 2013) was followed by the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, agreed at COP27 (2022) and operationalised at COP28 (2023). It is voluntary and makes no admission of fault.
• Customary principles: the no-harm principle (Trail Smelter arbitration, 1941; Stockholm Principle 21; Rio Principle 2) and the polluter-pays principle (Rio Principle 16).
• Advisory opinions: ITLOS (May 2024) held that GHG emissions are marine pollution under UNCLOS. The International Court of Justice (23 July 2025) advised that States have binding climate obligations under treaties and customary law, and that breach may engage State responsibility.
• Rights-based rulings: Urgenda v. Netherlands (2019); KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland (ECtHR, April 2024) under Article 8 ECHR; and in India, M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India (April 2024), in which the Supreme Court recognised a right against the adverse effects of climate change under Articles 14 and 21.
• Nepal: Article 30 of the Constitution of Nepal (2015) guarantees a right to a clean environment, including the victim’s right to compensation from the polluter. In Shrestha v. Office of the Prime Minister (2018), Nepal’s Supreme Court directed the Government to enact a climate change law.

• Climate justice: Nepal’s own emissions are negligible, yet it bears severe cryosphere risks. Litigation targets the historical responsibility of high emitters.
• Filling a gap: because the inter-State regime excludes liability, private-law suits against corporations become one of the few routes to compensation.
• Norm-building: even lost cases (like Lliuya) shift legal doctrine. Hamm’s acceptance of proportional liability for distant harm is itself a precedent-in-making.
• Corporate accountability: these cases raise the legal and reputational cost of emissions, and they shape disclosure and transition plans.

• Imminence is the binding constraint: Lliuya failed on this point despite favourable principles. Nepal’s plaintiffs would need site-specific hazard modelling, not general glacier trends.
• Small shares, small awards: proportional liability means each emitter pays only its fractional share, so many suits against many defendants would be needed.
• Forum and enforcement: the friendly forums are in Europe. Suing state-owned emitters raises sovereign immunity issues, and enforcing foreign judgments is slow.
• Capacity and cost: poor mountain communities need legal aid, expert evidence and transnational NGO support. Without these, the right remains theoretical.
• Adaptation cannot wait: litigation is slow. Early-warning systems, lake-lowering and hazard zoning must proceed regardless.
• A double-edged sword for South Asia: a broad doctrine of emitter liability could, in time, also be invoked against large emitters from developing countries.

• Build attribution and hazard-mapping capacity for transboundary glacial lakes, including joint monitoring with China and data-sharing through ICIMOD.
• Pursue parallel tracks: litigation, the Loss and Damage Fund, and reliance on the ICJ advisory opinion in diplomacy.
• Domestic legal reforms: strengthen Nepal’s climate change and environment laws, and provide legal aid to affected communities.
• Regional learning: India’s NDMA GLOF guidelines (2020) and GLOF risk-mitigation work offer a template for South Asian cooperation.

From France and Albania to Brazil and the U.S., protests are often explained away as youth frustration or anger at corruption. The author argues that a deeper, structural cause links them: the marketisation of every part of life, which leaves millions of people economically precarious.

• Routine explanations are inadequate: labels such as “disorder”, frustrated youth or anti-corruption anger describe the protests but do not explain them.
• France: protests grew out of accumulated frustration, including rent pressure, rising bills and alienation. Officials blamed foreign interference or schools. The unrest at first lacked a clear ideology, until trade unions gave it organised form.
• Albania: opposition to a seaside resort project linked to the U.S. President’s family grew into a national movement against privatising the coastline. The author reads “corruption” and “cost of living” as masks for a structural problem: the commodification of land and public space.
• Brazil: the author attributes the incumbent’s electoral success to a mass campaign for a 40-hour work week. In his reading, the promise that markets would build a middle class has worn thin.
• United States: the November 2026 midterms are read as a revolt against inflation and the administration. However, the author notes that the challenge for progressive candidates comes as much from their own party establishment as from rivals.
• The coming risk: a possible global financial crash driven by over-investment in AI could deepen precarity. Governments are constrained by international finance, so national solutions may not be enough. The author argues that popular movements must therefore become internationalist.

• Arab Spring (2010–11): began in Tunisia and was driven by unemployment, food prices and authoritarian rule.
• Occupy Wall Street (2011): followed the 2008 global financial crisis; its slogan of the “99%” drew attention to inequality.
• Gilets jaunes, France (2018): triggered by a fuel tax, it grew into a wider revolt over the cost of living.
• South Asia: Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya (2022) amid an economic collapse; Bangladesh (2024), starting from protests over job quotas; and Nepal’s youth-led protests (September 2025), triggered by a social-media ban. In each case, government change followed.
• Common thread: a young population, scarce secure jobs, rising living costs and digital mobilisation.

• Demographic pressure: India’s young workforce makes quality job creation and affordable urban housing central to social stability.
• Platform and gig work: the Code on Social Security, 2020 (in force since 21 November 2025) recognises gig and platform workers, a policy response of the kind Polanyi described.
• Welfare architecture: food security under the NFSA, 2013, DBT and housing schemes act as social buffers. Their design and fiscal sustainability matter.
• Neighbourhood instability: unrest in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal has had direct security and diplomatic consequences for India.

• Markets have also delivered: by World Bank estimates, extreme poverty fell from over a third of the world’s population in 1990 to under a tenth by 2019, largely through market-led growth in Asia.
• Corruption is not merely a mask: rent-seeking and crony privatisation are themselves part of the problem. Governance reform and market reform can go together.
• Multiple causes: identity politics, social-media dynamics, demographic bulges and local triggers also shape protests. A single economic lens risks over-generalising.
• The AI-crash forecast is speculative: it is a scenario, not an established trend. The adjustment may instead be gradual.
• Internationalism faces sovereignty limits: Dani Rodrik’s trilemma holds that a country cannot have full hyper-globalisation, national sovereignty and democracy at once. Coordinated responses, such as the OECD/G20 global minimum corporate tax (15%), have been slow and partial.

• Treat housing, water, health and public spaces as public goods that need regulation, not as pure commodities.
• Build portable social security for informal and gig workers.
• Strengthen institutional channels such as unions, local bodies and grievance redressal, so that discontent finds democratic expression.
• Pursue international cooperation on tax, financial regulation and AI-related risks to reduce the collective action problem.