The focus of this submission is on the right to a healthy environment of environmental human right defenders (EHRD) in Africa. It is a synthesis of the Amicus Brief submission to the request for an Advisory Opinion on African States Obligations in the Climate Crisis to the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights. This Amicus Brief was developed by Dr. Claudia Ituarte-Lima, Issabell Pope, Dr. Maria Andrea Nardi, Dr. Ana Maria Vargas Falla, Angeline Mbaria, Drishti Alagh, Emelie Andersson, Erin Gourley, Lathika Venkatapathy, and Meri Karhunen in the context of the Transnational Legal Clinic Defending a Living Earth (Defendbio Legal Clinic) at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI) and the Sociology of Law Department at Lund University, Sweden.
This submission highlights relevant insights from the said Amicus Brief for interpreting and clarifying the content of Article 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. It provides an overview of the right to a healthy environment and the way Article 24 should be interpreted in relation to environmental human rights defenders (EHRD), based on international human rights law and the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights’ jurisprudence.