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Since the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972, the right to a healthy environment has evolved into a globally accepted legal right with constitutional recognition in over 100 countries, including those from Africa. This right includes the need to live in a secure and sustainable environment and have access to clean water, air, and sanitation. The right has also been recognised by the African Commission and the African Court on Human Rights, and at the sub-regional levels, the ECOWAS Court of Justice. Africa’s natural resources environmentally impacted communities—such as those in Nigeria—experience incessant pollution, contamination, deforestation and habitat destruction, land conflicts, displacement, and negative health impacts, which have made the realisation of the right more important. However, enforcing the African Commission, Court, and the ECOWAS Court’s recommendations and rulings on the right has proven to be a significant challenge over time. Focusing on the jurisprudence of case law on the right to a healthy environment in Nigeria—SERAP v Nigeria, SERAC v Nigeria, and recent national cases, concerning the right to a healthy environment in Nigeria, this chapter assesses the remit, role, and impact of the African Commission and Court on Human Rights, and the ECOWAS Court in West Africa. It investigates how Nigerian courts have interpreted and enforced the African Human Rights Charter’s environmental rights and the obstacles to full implementation, given that the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act has been transposed into national law. This evaluation offers a basis for addressing implementation issues, resource limitations, and the persistent power play of the extractive industries in underwhelming the regime’s efficacy. It offers suggestions for states’ political commitment to ensuring compliance, addressing the effects of environmental degradation, offering remedies, and institutionalisation monitoring and reporting procedures relating to the right to the right.

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Enforcing the Right to a Healthy Environment in Natural Resource Impacted Communities: An Assessment of the Scorecard of Nigeria’s Courts’ Enforcement of the African Human Rights Charter

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Olalekan A. Bello

摘要

Since the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972, the right to a healthy environment has evolved into a globally accepted legal right with constitutional recognition in over 100 countries, including those from Africa. This right includes the need to live in a secure and sustainable environment and have access to clean water, air, and sanitation. The right has also been recognised by the African Commission and the African Court on Human Rights, and at the sub-regional levels, the ECOWAS Court of Justice. Africa’s natural resources environmentally impacted communities—such as those in Nigeria—experience incessant pollution, contamination, deforestation and habitat destruction, land conflicts, displacement, and negative health impacts, which have made the realisation of the right more important. However, enforcing the African Commission, Court, and the ECOWAS Court’s recommendations and rulings on the right has proven to be a significant challenge over time. Focusing on the jurisprudence of case law on the right to a healthy environment in Nigeria—SERAP v Nigeria, SERAC v Nigeria, and recent national cases, concerning the right to a healthy environment in Nigeria, this chapter assesses the remit, role, and impact of the African Commission and Court on Human Rights, and the ECOWAS Court in West Africa. It investigates how Nigerian courts have interpreted and enforced the African Human Rights Charter’s environmental rights and the obstacles to full implementation, given that the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act has been transposed into national law. This evaluation offers a basis for addressing implementation issues, resource limitations, and the persistent power play of the extractive industries in underwhelming the regime’s efficacy. It offers suggestions for states’ political commitment to ensuring compliance, addressing the effects of environmental degradation, offering remedies, and institutionalisation monitoring and reporting procedures relating to the right to the right.