Domestic and Regional Environmental Laws and Policies in Africa A Research Companion

This book explores African domestic and regional responses and approaches to environmental protection and sustainability. Written by African experts, the collection consists of five parts covering the whole of Africa. It provides broad coverage of specific themes, including environmental constitutionalism, climate change, gender and the environment, wildlife trade, environmental justice, and human displacement. The key aims are first, to explore theoretical and empirical studies to interrogate and provide clarity on academic discourse on how and whether environmental human rights approaches and policy implications have effectively enhanced environmental protection and sustainability at African domestic levels. Second, to investigate and present innovative solutions on how African domestic legal regimes deal with environmental justice, natural resources governance, refugees? environmental rights, and climate-induced displaced persons. Finally, to propose innovative legal and institutionalised solutions to Africa?s ecological realities by determining the legal and regulatory gaps on environmental human rights issues on the continent.

The collection will be a valuable resource for researchers, academics, and policymakers in human rights law, environmental law, political science, ecology and conservation, environmental management, disaster management, and development studies.

List of contributors xi

Foreword xviii

Acknowledgement xx

About the book xxi

1 Introduction: beyond the lens of constitutional environmental rights in Africa 1

SEMIE M. SAMA AND JEAN-CLAUDE N. ASHUKEM

PART 1

Environmental constitutionalism 13

2 Understanding the growing jurisprudence on environmental constitutionalism and the pursuit of environmental sustainability in Zimbabwe 15

AMANDA TAPIWA MUGADZA

3 Environmental constitutionalism in the Democratic Republic of Congo: essence and constraints of effectiveness 30

FRANCOIS BOKONA WIIPA BONDJALI

PART 2

Domestic environmental law approaches 47

4 The human right to a healthy environment in Cameroon’s 1996 constitution and the pursuit of sustainability in a comparative context: finding space for sustainable development in Cameroon? 49

JEAN-CLAUDE N. ASHUKEM AND SEMIE M. SAMA

5 Decolonising environmental law for sustainable development with particular reference to Zimbabwe 69

TUMAI MUROMBO

6 The non-anthropocentric claims of African environmental ethics: Nigerian environmental legislation and the rhetoric of the pursuit of environmental sustainability 86

PATRICK ODU EGBEJI

7 Human rights and environmental justice as transcendental and psychosocial in human systems: the Luhmann effect in Nigeria’s Niger Delta oil complex 103

OLALEKAN A. BELLO

8 Oil spill preparedness and environmental governance in Mauritius: lessons to be learnt from the MV Wakashio oil spill at the domestic and regional levels 124

ODILE JULIETTE LIM TUNG

9 The human right to a healthy environment in Tunisia: A critical analysis of the constitutional right to a healthy environment and sustainability 143

BENG SIMON KELUH

10 Interrogating the environmental rights of the Indigenous peoples of the Niger Delta: how to safeguard the right of non-discrimination in pursuit of environmental sustainability in Nigeria 161

OLANIYI FELIX OLAYINKA

11 Challenges of human rights protection in the sustainable development of natural resources in South Africa 180

KOLAPO OMIDIRE

PART 3

Gender and the environment 199

12 Analysis of Global North and South approaches to public urination: legal, environmental, and gender perspectives 201

FURAHA-JOY SEKAI SAUNGWEME

13 Towards an integrated gender-sensitive approach to climate change governance in pursuit of environmental sustainability in Africa: highlighting the legal paradigms of Burkina Faso and Nigeria 220

OLUWATOYIN ADEJONWO AND SIDNOMA NITA BELEMSOBGO

PART 4

Cross-cutting themes 239

14 Exploring the questionable connection between the right to development and environmental protection in Kenya 241

FAITH KABATA

15 Human rights and sustainable forest conservation in Africa: perspectives from Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria 260

JOHN OLUWATOMISIN AKINSELURE

16 Exploring the effectiveness of institutionalised water conservation policy in the workplace: empirical observations from the North-West University – Mahikeng campus in South Africa 279

LOBINA GERTRUDE PALAMULENI AND RHODA CYNTHIA BAKUWA

17 Enhancing environmental rights protection through litigation in pursuit of environmental sustainability in Africa: A comparative analysis of the role of Indigenous peoples in Uganda and Kenya 298

PETER DAVIS MUTESASIRA

18 Transfrontier conservation in Southern African Development Community and the pursuit of environmental sustainability 317

WILLEM D. LUBBE AND MICHELLE BARNARD

19 In pursuit of environmental sustainability: protection of wild animal rights in wildlife trade in the East African community 339

EMMANUEL KASIMBAZI

20 Mining and environmental unsustainability: exploring the attainability of a transnational approach to adapting and implementing the African mining vision 358

STACY CHEMBE

PART 5

Climate change and migration 383

21 In pursuit of environmental sustainability: the complexity of human rights and gender issues in climate change governance in Malawi 385

NGCIMEZILE MBANO-MWESO

22 The future of climate change litigation in pursuit of environmental sustainability in Africa: A review of Nigeria’s 2021 Climate Change Act 405

AARON OLANIYI SALAU

23 In pursuit of environmental sustainability: legal responses towards climate change induced human displacement in the Eastern African region 422

EMMANUEL KASIMBAZI AND ALEX NABWISO

24 Conclusion – living on the edge of African sustainability? 444

JEAN-CLAUDE N. ASHUKEM

Index 454

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.