In a landmark transfer for environmental justice and human rights in Africa, the African Local weather Platform, Resilient40, Pure Justice and Environmental Lawyer Collective for
Africa, in collaboration with the Pan African Attorneys Union (PALU), will submit a petition to the African Courtroom on Human and Peoples’ Rights on Could 2, 2025, in Arusha, Tanzania. The petition requests an Advisory Opinion on the human rights obligations of African States within the context of local weather change.
This unprecedented initiative marks the primary time African civil society is using the Courtroom’s advisory jurisdiction to deal with the local weather disaster – a growth described by authorized specialists and local weather activists as a transformational second for African jurisprudence on local weather justice and intergenerational fairness.
“Africa, which contributes solely a small fraction of worldwide greenhouse gasoline emissions, is dealing with overwhelming challenges because of the local weather disaster. The alarming rise within the frequency and severity of droughts and flooding, together with escalating temperatures, poses grave threats to each pure ecosystems and the livelihoods of numerous people. Recognizing the urgency of this example, we’re launching this petition as a heartfelt plea for justice for the communities enduring these harsh realities. Our mission is to place in place sturdy protecting measures in opposition to environmental hurt, guaranteeing that the dignity and resilience of the tens of millions of Africans confronting these challenges are upheld. We’re deeply dedicated to making sure that their basic rights are acknowledged and that their voices resonate in discussions relating to the federal government’s duties towards previous, current, and future generations. By advocating for these essential rules, we search to strengthen intergenerational duties and promote a brand new authorized framework that emphasizes multi-generational obligations and duties for states. Africa’s poor MUST not pay for the life-style of the historic emitters,” asserted Alfred Brownell, Lead Campaigner of the African Local weather Platform.
Grounded within the African Constitution on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the petition seeks the Courtroom’s interpretation of States’ obligations underneath key regional authorized devices, together with the Maputo Protocol, the Kampala Conference, and the African Constitution on the Rights and Welfare of the Youngster. The petition addresses crucial authorized and human rights points, presenting a possibility to affirm a unified continental imaginative and prescient rooted within the following core rules:
States’ obligation to safeguard the rights to life, well being, housing, meals, water, and a wholesome atmosphere; Authorized requirements for local weather adaptation, resilience, and addressing loss and harm; Obligations to guard susceptible teams, together with Indigenous Peoples, ladies, youth, and local weather defenders; Accountability of multinational firms and historic polluters; Promotion of a simply transition and equitable vitality programs; Decolonization of pure useful resource governance; Zero tolerance for reprisals and a dedication to dignity.
Within the lead-up to the submission, authorized professionals, local weather justice advocates, environmental defenders, and human rights activists from throughout the continent have been gathered in Arusha since April 27 to finalize this historic petition.
The initiative is being hailed as a milestone in Africa’s evolving authorized response to local weather injustice, calling on the continent’s highest human rights courtroom to play a defining position in shaping climate-resilient governance and regulation.
Greater than a authorized act, the Arusha gathering is a strong expression of solidarity from activists and frontline defenders throughout Africa’s 5 areas. Their voices, rooted in lived expertise, spotlight the urgency of the local weather disaster:
“From the drying dams of Morocco to the thirst protests in Algeria and the catastrophe of Derna in Libya, North Africa is a stark reminder that local weather change will not be a future risk—it’s a current human rights disaster, unfolding by way of water shortage, displacement, and financial instability,” mentioned Ahmad Abdallah, an Egyptian Human Rights Defende r.
Lucien Limacher from Pure Justice, South Africa, added: “Southern Africa is confronting its most extreme drought in over a century, with widespread crop failures and a starvation disaster affecting 61 million individuals.
Ladies and ladies bear the brunt—dealing with disrupted schooling, elevated home burdens, and heightened publicity to gender-based violence.”
“Environmental defenders and land rights activists, together with Indigenous Peoples, typically face extreme repression whereas standing between highly effective pursuits and susceptible ecosystems. Their work to guard pure sources and indigenous territories regularly places them at extraordinary danger, with insufficient safety from the very establishments meant to safeguard human rights,” Dr Paul Mulindwa – CIVICUS.
Peter Quaqua, from the MRU CSO Platform, Liberia, famous: “Report-breaking warmth and collapsing cocoa yields are scorching our economies and claiming lives. Local weather change is popping West Africa’s fertile floor right into a zone of desperation and injustice.”
Dorcas Sikujua Faida, from DRC, emphasised: “A triple disaster of flooding, drought, and rising battle is deepening instability and destroying livelihoods. Local weather change is overwhelming already fragile states and leaving communities more and more susceptible.”
For Activist, Shahinaz Adel from Egypt, “The influence of the local weather disaster is felt principally by ladies and ladies who’re breadwinners and caretakers of the household; this provides to the cultural obligations imposed on them by the African and non secular traditions.”
Namibian Social Media Influencer and Artist, Inna Maria Shikongo, insisted that “It’s time to confront the inequalities and injustices ladies and youth undergo every single day throughout the continent, induced by local weather change.”
Join free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the most recent in African information delivered straight to your inbox
Success!
Virtually completed…
We have to affirm your e mail deal with.
To finish the method, please observe the directions within the e mail we simply despatched you.
Error!
There was an issue processing your submission. Please strive once more later.
“Indigenous peoples and marginalized communities throughout Africa have contributed the least to world greenhouse gasoline emissions, but they bear the brunt of local weather change impacts. Their livelihoods and really existence are carefully tied to the well being of nature. Recognizing their crucial position in nature stewardship and their conventional information is important for efficient and inclusive local weather motion,” mentioned Agnes Kabujuni, African Managing Director at Minority Rights Group.
Lastly, the Financial Governance Officer of PALU, June Cynthia Okelo, declared: “Africa will not be a shock absorber for polluters. By way of this petition, PALU stands with the individuals of Africa to demand readability, accountability, and justice underneath African and worldwide regulation. The time has come for our courts to affirm that environmental hurt isn’t just a scientific concern— it’s a human rights emergency,”
These regional views and voices are emblematic of the profound human sufferings and rights violations the African individuals have needed to endure on account of the local weather disaster, occasioned by the scramble for pure sources by multinational firms. This petition is a name to motion for all Africans to battle for the local weather and their atmosphere.
Following the submission on Could 2, representatives of the petition will maintain a press briefing on the African Courtroom’s premises in Arusha to supply additional perception into this pivotal authorized motion.
