Documenting the Growth of a Continental Movement for Environmental Rights

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) hosted a high-level consultation on human rights and Africa's environmental crisis in Nairobi from 12–13 July 2025. The meeting convened experts from academia, civil society, Indigenous communities, national human rights institutions, the African Commission, the African Court, and sub-regional judicial bodies. It offered a rare space for collective reflection on how to strengthen environmental rights amid escalating climate, biodiversity, and pollution emergencies.

Participants began with a shared understanding: Africa contributes the least to global emissions yet suffers disproportionately from climate-induced displacement, biodiversity loss, toxic pollution, and the worsening vulnerability of Indigenous Peoples, women, children, persons with disabilities, and environmental defenders.

Experts noted real progress. All African states now recognize the right to a healthy environment through constitutions or legislation, while landmark African Commission and Court rulings — from SERAC v. Nigeria to Endorois v. Kenya — continue to shape global environmental justice. National human rights institutions are stepping up, including NANHRI's new climate unit. Civil society coalitions such as ERA are driving coordinated advocacy for stronger standards.

Still, major gaps persist: weak enforcement, fragmented institutions, shrinking civic space, and limited incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems.

Proposed practical measures included clearer access to information, stronger public participation, better compliance mechanisms (including environmental courts), and protection against SLAPP suits. The consultation closed with firm commitments: civil society vowed to expand monitoring; UN agencies and regional institutions pledged continued support; donors committed to strengthening capacity and African-led coordination.

At the 2024 Santiago "Lessons Learnt" Conference, ERA joined global partners to reflect on what an African regional environmental rights agreement could look like. In a panel on Environmental Democracy in Africa, Emily Kinama drew on ERA's case studies in the DRC, South Africa, Ghana, and Kenya, showing how defenders across the continent face similar systemic challenges: weak access to courts, rampant criminalization, extractive industry abuses, and colonial-era barriers to information.

"Laws and information are kept secret… many people don't even know their rights," she noted, emphasizing that even countries with strong laws struggle with implementation. Lack of resources, limited scientific capacity, and basic obstacles like accessing documents or filing complaints further weaken accountability.

Panelists Napoli, Joara Marchezini, and Patricia Madrigal shared insights from Latin America's Escazú Agreement. Success depended on a strong civil society network, a supportive secretariat, and a shared vision among negotiators. A major turning point was the recognition in Article 9 that environmental and human rights are inseparable. But the path was difficult — political resistance, mistrust, language barriers, and endless debates over whether the agreement should be binding slowed progress. Humility and strategy were essential: leaving egos behind, uplifting credible voices, finding allies inside government, and ensuring quieter participants had space to contribute.

The Chile conversations offered both caution and hope. The question for Africa is not whether the Escazú success is possible, but how the continent can design a homegrown agreement that reflects its histories, institutions, and community needs. Achieving this will require political courage, sustained consultation, and a strong civil society movement.

Activists, legal experts, and civil society leaders from every corner of the African continent converged in Freetown for a week-long meeting of the Environmental Rights Africa (ERA) initiative — to seek pathways for the adoption of a regional environmental rights framework. From 17 to 21 February, the coalition deliberated and finalized a five-year strategic plan that will guide efforts around environmental democracy, protect land and defenders, and advance a stronger legal framework that holds governments and corporations accountable for environmental injustices.

"This meeting marks a defining moment for environmental rights in Africa," said Alfred Brownell, Lead Campaigner. "We are not just discussing policies — we are building a movement that will ensure African communities have the legal tools to protect their lands, waters, and livelihoods."

A key outcome of the gathering was the adoption of a five-year work program aligned with ERA's long-term goals of research, advocacy, and coalition-building. The strategy seeks to strengthen governance structures by clarifying the roles of regional and national focal points; designing government engagement strategies and identifying potential state champions to advance treaty negotiations; and developing a sustainable funding plan through partnerships and donor support.

With deforestation, land grabs, pollution, and climate change mounting across Africa, ERA emerged from Freetown with a renewed mandate, a stronger coalition, and a bold vision for the future — one where environmental rights are not just recognized, but actively enforced across the continent.

When delegates gathered in Banjul for the 85th Ordinary Public Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR), the urgency was unmistakable. Rising temperatures, polluted rivers, shrinking forests, widening inequalities, and escalating attacks on environmental defenders have brought Africa to a critical turning point.

Working with the ACHPR's Working Group on Extractive Industries, Environment and Human Rights (WGEI), ERA hosted a side event on 25 October titled "Advancing the Protection and Promotion of Environmental Rights in Africa." Though only forty participants attended, the dialogue carried regional significance: Africa is edging toward a more coherent and enforceable environmental rights regime.

ACHPR Commissioner Solomon Ayele Dersso reinforced this point by highlighting ongoing work to draft a General Comment on Article 24 — the right to a satisfactory environment under the African Charter. For the first time, the Commission is developing a standalone interpretation that positions environmental rights as autonomous and deserving focused protection.

Liberian lawyer Alfred Brownell, speaking from decades of frontline experience, outlined structural failures — from weak safeguards and poor public participation to limited access to justice — that leave communities vulnerable. Drawing on his work with ERA and the African Climate Platform (ACP), he highlighted two major efforts: the push for a regional environmental rights framework and the Advisory Opinion request filed before the African Court through PALU on states' climate obligations.

From the Open Society Foundations (OSF), Adama Dembere reaffirmed long-term support for defenders and institutions, noting OSF's nearly USD 100 million investment in environmental rights and critical minerals programs.

In a landmark step for environmental and human rights protection, the African Climate Platform, Resilient40, Natural Justice, and the Environmental Lawyer Collective for Africa — working with the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) — submitted a historic petition to the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights on May 2, 2025.

The group is requesting an Advisory Opinion on African States' human rights obligations in the context of climate change — the first civil society–driven climate petition ever brought before the Court. Experts say it could redefine Africa's climate justice landscape and strengthen intergenerational equity across the continent.

Grounded in the African Charter, the Maputo Protocol, the Kampala Convention, and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the petition calls on the Court to clarify what African states are legally required to do in the face of the climate crisis. It asks the Court to affirm that governments must safeguard fundamental rights — including life, health, food, water, housing, and a clean and healthy environment — and to set clear standards for climate adaptation, resilience, and addressing loss and damage.

Across the continent, frontline voices echoed the human toll of the climate crisis. From North Africa to West and Southern Africa, speakers described droughts, flooding, collapsing cocoa yields, rising sea levels, and the disproportionate burdens borne by women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples. PALU's June Cynthia Okelo delivered a clear message: Africa must no longer be treated as a shock absorber for the world's polluters.

The Court has since acknowledged the petition and notified African governments, AU organs, and other individuals to submit observations.

Africa's climate crisis is no longer abstract — floods in East Africa, droughts in the Sahel, and storms like those in Derna, Libya, are devastating lives and livelihoods. These disasters reveal a pattern of environmental instability that national laws alone cannot contain.

Africa now has a rare opportunity: a Regional Environmental Rights Agreement — a continent-wide framework to protect the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. This is the vision of Environmental Rights Africa (ERA), a coalition of 55+ civil society organizations and grassroots defenders across 40+ countries, formed in 2021 to address transboundary environmental threats.

Pollution, extractive operations, and climate-driven displacement do not stop at borders. Yet most African states rely on weak national laws, offering limited transparency, inconsistent enforcement, and little protection for environmental defenders. ERA research across West and East Africa, and in the DRC, South Africa, and Ghana, shows widespread repression, shrinking civic space, and unregulated corporate activity — gaps that only a regional framework can fill.

Such an agreement would guarantee access to information, meaningful public participation, and justice when harm occurs. It would protect defenders, harmonize standards across the continent, and prevent industries from exploiting regulatory gaps. In short, it would strengthen governance while centering the rights and safety of communities.

ERA has engaged the ACHPR, UNEP, the AU, Indigenous leaders, and several governments. In 2025, with support from the Ford Foundation and OSF, ERA adopted a five-year strategy, expanding case studies, regional anchors, and expert working groups. The Nairobi UNEP consultation marked a watershed moment, signaling growing continental support for a new environmental rights instrument.

A Regional Environmental Rights Agreement is about dignity, justice, and survival — for farmers in Malawi, families in Senegal, and defenders from Liberia to Mozambique. History will judge whether Africa seized this moment. The question is not whether the continent needs a regional agreement — but whether it will act now.