1st Edition
Human Rights and the Environment in Africa A Research Companion
The relationship between human rights and the environment, as evidenced by the 2022 UN Resolution on the human right to a healthy environment, is a topical, fascinating, uneasy, and increasingly urgent one. This timely collection explores the inextricable relationship between human rights and the environment as a critical lens for understanding and addressing key human rights and environmental issues confronting Africa.
The work explores theoretical, philosophical, and doctrinal, research to interrogate and provide clarity on how and whether the human rightsbased approach to environmental protection and policy implications has been effective in enhancing environmental protection and sustainability in Africa. It brings together an elite group of African and international experts to investigate the increasing connectivity and problems with African human rights, environmental governance, and the quest for sustainability.
The book is divided into thematic clusters, including the right of vulnerable communities to sustainability; climate change, the right to development and natural resource governance; corporate environmental responsibility and sustainability; the philosophy of environmental ethics and theories of human rights approaches to environmental governance; procedural environmental rights; the role of the judiciary in environmental protection; and desertification. These themes provide a structure to investigate and clarify specific fundamental questions on Africa’s environmental governance paradigm.
This innovative contribution provides an interdisciplinary approach to the philosophical interrelationship and use of human rights approaches to ensure and enhance environmental protection and sustainability. As such, the book will be of interest to African scholars, researchers, and students in human rights law, environmental studies, political science, ecology and conservation, and development studies. It will also be a valuable resource for policymakers, governments, NGOs, practitioners, and all those interested in African environmental governance.
Foreword xi
List of contributors xiii
Acknowledgement xxiii
1 Introduction: African environmentalism and sustainability – framing the epistemic parameters of human rights and the environment in Africa 1
JEAN-CLAUDE N. ASHUKEM
PART 1
Legal, theoretical, and philosophical issues of human rights and the environment in Africa 17
2 Critical reflections on rights theory and environmental ethics in environmental jurisprudence: an African perspective in pursuit of environmental sustainability 19
SAMUEL BASSEY AND PAUL TERNGU HAAGA
3 The emergence of a human right to a healthy environment and the pursuit of sustainability in Africa 39
EMMANUEL KASIMBAZI, AND JEAN-CLAUDE N. ASHUKEM
4 Human rights and the environment in pursuit of sustainability in Africa: a critical assessment of folkloric, legal, and political economy perspectives 59
OLAWALE AJAI
5 Human rights and the pursuit of environmental sustainability in Africa: issues and problems in African environmental ethics and environmental law 78
SAMUEL BASSEY AND JOHN ELIZABETH OKON
PART 2
Procedural environmental rights in Africa 95
6 International participatory rights and environment protection in Africa – powerful tools or “sleeping rights”? 97
JONAS EBBESSON
7 Procedural rights and trans-regional environmental governance in pursuit of sustainability in Africa: a new African treaty or taking the Aarhus Convention’s route? 116
JEAN-CLAUDE N. ASHUKEM AND TOLULOPE N. OGBORU
8 Pursuing environmental sustainability in Africa: procedural obstacles to environmental litigation based on human rights law 136
DINAH SHELTON
PART 3
Judiciary and the environment in Africa 159
9 Stepping into the future of environmental sustainability in Africa: a case for regional environmental courts 161
CHIDINMA THERESE ODAGHARA
10 International criminal law and the pursuit of environmental sustainability in Africa 179
THOMAS ROSE, LL.M, MSL
11 The judiciary and environmental protection in Africa in pursuit of sustainability: creating an environmental rule of law jurisprudence in response to climate change imperatives 197
FUNMI ABIOYE
12 The justiciability of the right to a healthy environment in the French-speaking states of Africa 214
VINCENT ZAKANÉ
PART 4
Rights to development and natural resources in Africa 237
13 Land grabbing and the right to a healthy environment: the pursuit of sustainability under the African charter on human and peoples’ rights 239
SEMIE M. SAMA
14 Contested priority in the pursuit of sustainability in Africa: the right to development and/or the right to a satisfactory environment under the African Charter? 258
JEAN-CLAUDE N. ASHUKEM AND KAREN MORROW
15 Land grabbing in the Anthropocene and the “questionable” pursuit of sustainability in Africa – highlighting ecological disproportionality 276
JEAN-CLAUDE N. ASHUKEM
16 The inefficacy of international law to address biodiversity loss in Africa: a quest for environmental sustainability through an Ecocentric approach 295
CHANE CLARECE HENNEY
17 Reflections on the re-orientation of the methods of shared waters governance in African river basin organisations 312
FRANCOIS BOKONA
PART 5
Rights of vulnerable communities and sustainability in Africa 329
18 The rights of vulnerable communities to development in pursuit of environmental sustainability in Africa: the role of the African Union 331
EBUN ABOLARIN
19 The implication of extractive industries’ operation on human and environmental rights of vulnerable groups in pursuit of environmental sustainability in Africa 353
TSEPO CHEDA
PART 6
Climate change and migration in Africa 373
20 Climate action and the pursuit of environmental sustainability in Africa: an analysis of Africa’s involvement in COP26 discussions 375
LARISSA-JANE H. HOUSTON
21 Assessing African Union’s regime on climate change 396
RICHARD OBENG MENSAH, AND ROSE ASAMOAH
PART 7
Desertification in Africa 413
22 Fostering sustainability through mobility – How opening Africa’s borders combats desertification 415
MORITZ VON ROCHOW
23 A rights-based approach to desertification control in pursuit of sustainability in Africa 435
CHARLOTTE KABASEKE
24 Conclusion: towards a more resilient and sustainable human environmental rights future for Africa 452
JEAN-CLAUDE N. ASHUKEM
Index 463
Biography
Jean-Claude N. Ashukem is Researcher at the Global Environmental Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. He serves on the Editorial Board of GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis.
Semie M. Sama is Assistant Professor of Law at Lakehead University, Canada.
'This research companion is a much-needed addition to scholarship on human rights and the environment in Africa. It proposes legal, institutional and regulatory solutions to the unfolding climate and biodiversity crises that urgently require solutions. It covers a wide range of issues including the right to development, the role of the judiciary, environmental ethics, land grabbing, sustainable development and ecological sustainability, procedural justice, and governance of natural resources. This timely and welcoming volume on legal responses to climate and environmental problems in Africa is an important addition to the increasing body of research by Africans.'
Professor Sam Adelman, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
'This book provides a fresh and much needed series of perspectives on the topic. Covering enormous ground, it highlights quality African and transnational scholarship in the field, and will present a good source for many years to come.'
Kim Bouwer, Assistant Professor in Law, Durham Law School.
