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As African states face growing pressure to respond to the climate crisis, SECTION27 has filed written submissions as amicus curiae (friend of the court) before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, on the climate change crises and the obligations of African State.

The submissions are in response to a Request for an Advisory Opinion brought by the Pan-African Lawyers Union (“PALU”).

The Request presents an important opportunity for the African Court to clarify the obligations of African States under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (“African Charter”) in responding to one of the most pressing challenges facing the continent. Although Africa has contributed the least to global greenhouse gas emissions, it is among the regions most severely affected by climate change.

The Court’s Advisory Opinion therefore provides an opportunity to develop principled guidance that is responsive to African realities and grounded in the African human rights system.

SECTION27 submits that climate change is not only an environmental challenge, but a human rights one. Its effects are already undermining the enjoyment of the rights to education, health, dignity, equality, life, and a satisfactory environment.

Drawing on our work with communities across South Africa, SECTION27 demonstrates how floods, droughts, extreme heat, pollution and failing infrastructure are disrupting access to schools, healthcare services, food, transport, and sanitation. These impacts are felt most acutely by children, women and girls, persons with disabilities, and communities living in poverty.

In relation to education, SECTION27 submits that the African Charter and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child require States to develop climate-resilient education systems that ensure the continuity of learning during and after climate-related disasters. This requires investment in resilient school infrastructure, learner transport, school nutrition programmes and other systems necessary for the effective enjoyment of the right to education.

In relation to health, SECTION27 submits that the rights to health, equality, non-discrimination and a satisfactory environment, read together with the obligations contained in the African Charter, the Maputo Protocol and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child require States to adopt gender-responsive, child-sensitive and climate-resilient health systems capable of protecting individuals and communities from the foreseeable impacts of climate change.

SECTION27 further submits that the effective protection of human rights requires States to regulate the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises whose activities contribute to environmental degradation and climate change, including those in the fossil fuel industry.

This includes mining companies whose operations lead to air pollution, contamination of rivers, and increased greenhouse gas emissions, disproportionately affecting the communities they are in. States cannot discharge their obligations under the African Charter without taking reasonable legislative, regulatory, and other measures to prevent and mitigate climate-related human rights harms.

Ultimately, SECTION27’s submissions invite the Court to affirm that responding to climate change requires more than environmental policy. It requires African States to protect the systems upon which the enjoyment of human rights depends, including schools, healthcare facilities, transport networks, water and sanitation infrastructure, and other essential public services.

SECTION27 has requested that the Court afford it an opportunity to make oral submissions if the Court decides to hold oral hearings.

Issued by SECTION27