CURRENT TRENDS IN SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION AND THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

Adenike A. Akinsemolu 1

Foluke V. Arijeniwa 2

INTRODUCTION

This article examines the current trends in sustainability education and the future of sustainability education in Nigeria. It contends that development and environment are intertwined and thus should be systematically embedded into educational activities to yield environmentally responsible and accountable policies and citizens in the quest for sustainable development. The significant roles of Environmental Education (EE) as a tool for propagating United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been identified within Nigeria's national guidelines and policy visions. While there is this recognition, implementing and delivering EE programs remains significantly affected by various practical implementation challenges. Despite various studies documenting the value of EE for the achievement of the SDGs, challenges related to governance and laws limiting the roll-out of these programs in Nigeria continue to pose implementation challenges. Thus, this article seeks to look at the various institutional and legal challenges arising with the implementation of these programs within Nigeria and how to practically address them. The main challenges identified in this study are inadequate funding, capacity gaps, insufficient facilities, inadequate infrastructure, and the lack of EE in national strategies and plans. Recommendations for addressing these challenges are provided, along with conclusions on the future outlook.

Keywords: environmental education, Environment, Environmental Education, Sustainable Development, sustainability, current trends, future of sustainability

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v12i2.11

Adenike A. Akinsemolu, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Oil, Gas, Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development, Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti

Foluke V. Arijeniwa, Research Associate, The Green Institute, Nigeria

REDRESSING HARMFUL ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES IN THE NIGERIAN PETROLEUM INDUSTRY THROUGH THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE APPROACH

Cleverline T. Brown*

Nlerum S. Okogbule**

INTRODUCTION

The discovery and continued exploitation of crude oil in Nigeria with its many advantages, has exposed the Nigerian environment to several forms of pollution and degradation. Consequently, extensive harm has been done to the human and natural environment some of which may prove irreversible. This is largely attributable to wrongful environmental practices, sabotage, ineffective regulation and enforcement mechanisms. Sadly, environmental laws in Nigeria do not specifically criminalize such inimical activities, while some grave environmental crimes are downplayed and treated as civil wrongs. This article argues in favour of a compelling need for a reassessment of environmentally harmful acts with a view to codifying and criminalizing certain acts to promote the observance of basic environmental laws, especially by multinational corporations, and support the realization of a sustainable environment in the country. This has become imperative as Nigeria is a subscriber to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). An effective and efficient regulatory regime is a vital for achieving these goals by the year 2030.

Keywords: Environment, Environmental Pollution, Environmental crime, Ecocide, SDGs.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v11i2.3

* LL.B (RSU), B.L (Lagos), LL.M (RSU), Lecturer in Law, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt Nigeria and PhD Law Researcher, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom (UWE). E-mail: cleverline2.brown@live.uwe.ac.uk

** LL.B (Ife), B.L (Lagos), LL.M (Ife), PhD (Glasgow), Professor of International Law and Vice-Chancellor, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Email: nlerumokogbule@ust.edu.ng

RECONCILING HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT: A PROPOSAL TO INTEGRATE THE RIGHT TO FOOD WITH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE 2030 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

Ana García Juanatey*

ABSTRACT

This article examines the utility of the human rights-based approach (HRBA) in tackling environmental challenges that face achievement of the right to food in coming decades. So far, such approach has been quite useful in the consideration of equity, discrimination and accountability issues. Nevertheless, the HRBA’s utility to tackle the effects of environmental degradation, natural resources depletion and climate change on food security is not that clear, as human rights law and practice has evolved in parallel with environmental concerns until recently. Therefore, this article poses the following question: is the human rights-based approach to food security sufficient to address the environmental problems and constraints that infringe directly on the right to food implementation? And, how can we integrate the needs of future generations in current human rights-based policies and deal with the tradeoffs between present and future needs? This article examines how last years’ international legal literature has portrayed the linkages between the environment and human rights, principally in relation to the right to food. Moreover, it also intends to explore possible avenues of convergence, pinpointing opportunities to connect the right to food and sustainable development in the context of the 2030 Agenda. In more concrete terms, it suggests that a greater integration between the right to food and a set of principles of sustainable development law may open new avenues for research and advocacy on the right to food.

Keywords: Human Rights, Environment, Right to Food, Human RightsBased Approach, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Development Law

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v9i1.2

---

* PhD (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Visiting Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Research Fellow at Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). This article is based on the research conducted at the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) between January and March 2015. I thank Juan Carlos García Cebolla and the rest of the Right to Food Team for their warm welcome and help during that period. Part of the views reflected in this article are included too in my PhD thesis entitled, “An Integrated Approach of the Right to Food and Food Security in the Framework of Sustainable Development” (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2016), supervised by Professor Ángel J. Rodrigo Hernández.

HUMAN SECURITY IN THE NIGER DELTA: EXPLORING THE INTERPLAY OF RESOURCE GOVERNANCE, COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND CONFLICTS

Olayinka Ajala*

ABSTRACT

Prior to August 2009, the Niger Delta region of Nigeria witnessed widespread violent conflicts between the government, multinational oil corporations (MNCs) and militant groups. This conflict was widely attributed to deplorable human security, which deprived the indigenes of the region access to their sources of livelihoods due to pollution, by MNCs. In 2009, the government granted amnesty to thousands of ‘repentant militants’ and this programme has achieved mixed results. This article will explore the impact of human security on the outbreak of violence in the Niger Delta and the impact of the Amnesty Programme in addressing issues relating to human security. The article concludes that bottom-up community-driven initiatives offer the best approach to address human security issues in the Niger Delta. The article is based on an ethnographic research carried out in 2013 in three states in the region (Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers states).

Keywords: Human security, justice, environment, Niger Delta, MNCs

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v7i2.5

---

* Department of Politics, University of York, email: oaa511@york.ac.uk

INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE: LESSONS FROM UNEA AND PERSPECTIVES ON THE POST-2015 ERA

Joseph Nyangon*

ABSTRACT

The inaugural meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) held in June 2014 in Nairobi, was a culmination of more than four decades of environmental governance since the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was established in 1972 in Stockholm. The meeting addressed weighty and contentious issues including strengthening of UNEP’s role in promoting environmental governance and enhancing science-policy interface. Yet despite the historical significance of the meeting following universalization of the governing body of UNEP and current debates on the post-2015 development agenda, questions persist about the role of UNEP, its establishment, performance, and fragmentation of programmes and secretariats of the multilateral environmental agreements associated with it. This paper reviews the outcome of the inaugural UNEA session, while developing a political economy account of institutional arrangements of international environmental governance to clarify the potential for, and barriers to effective environmental reform. Multilaterally, international environmental governance continues to exhibit elements of complexity, fragmentation, lack of coordination as well as redundancy. In more critical terms, lack of policy integration between environmental regimes is a concern of environmental governance that the new UNEA should address as a matter of priority. Furthermore, incoherent policy objectives in international environmental law often characterised as a governance patchwork have been criticized for their economic orthodoxies that only serve to marginalize and delegitimize alternative modes of environmental governance. In this regard, a core part of UNEA’s institutional legitimacy depends on its success in coevolving to keep up with environmental challenges as they themselves change, as well as enhancing consensus-based stakeholder engagement, perspectives, and participation on environmental governance. This will be its true litmus test on how it responds coherently and effectively to international environmental governance in a post-2015 development world.

Keywords: International environmental governance, institutional arrangements, UNEA, political economy, fragmentation, SDGs, post-2015 goals

---

* Joseph Nyangon, Ph.D. Researcher, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy (CEEP), University of Delaware, U.S.A., jnyangon@udel.edu.

AS THE WORLD WELCOMES ITS SEVEN BILLIONTH HUMAN: REFLECTIONS ON POPULATION, LAW, AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Robert Hardaway*

ABSTRACT

Twenty years ago, Praeger Publications of Westport Connecticut published this author’s book “Population, Law and the Environment”,1 in which the case was made for identifying human population expansion as the key environmental issue of our times. This case rested in large part on linking together cultural and legal issues, which theretofore had not always been considered to be related to environmental protection, such as abortion, the rights of women, contraception, immigration, family planning, and policies of economic growth. There have been considerable developments in these areas which have spurred this author to update his book, this time in the form of this article which both condenses the content of his previously published book where apposite (including passages which are incorporated verbatim from his previous work), and updates the most recent data supporting its original premise. The case is renewed herein for linking those areas which continue to be widely ignored or rejected as relevant to environmentalism, while at the same time urging that the environmental movement and the law that supports it expand its current narrow focus on the “A” and “T” factors of Holdren’s2 brilliantly conceived equation (I=PAT), and recognize the more critical “P” component, which in turn is a reflection of how both domestic and international law promulgates and enforces law in the areas identified in this article. The name that the author has adopted for this proposed change of focus is “Environmental Malthusianism.”3 Keywords: Population, Environment, Law, Climate Change

---

* Professor of Law at the Sturm College of Law, University of Denver, Colorado, United States. This article is reprinted with permission from Sustainable Development Law and Policy, (2014) Volume XIV, Issue 1, American University Washington College of Law.

1. Praeger Publications is now a part of the publishing house of ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California.

2 Although Holdren’s name is used herein to describe the equation, the equation has been recognized as a joint effort of John Holdren, Barry Commoner, and Paul Ehrlich.

3 Although the author has not found any usage of this term in other literature, he claims no credit for its coinage given that it seems such an obvious term to describe the linkage of population to the environment.

THE RIGHT TO A HEALTHFUL ENVIRONMENT IN NIGERIA: A REVIEW OF ALTERNATIVE PATHWAYS TO ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN NIGERIA

Abdulkadir Bolaji Abdulkadir, Ph.D*

ABSTRACT

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria includes in its Chapter Two on “Fundamental Objectives and Directives Principles of State Policy” provisions on the protection of the environment. However, these provisions are made unjusticiable by other provisions in the Constitution that oust the jurisdiction of the court to entertain any matter related to the enforceability of the provisions of chapter two of the Constitution, which includes the protection of environment. These ouster provisions have led to an explosion of scholarly views on the question of how best environmental rights could be constitutionally derived and protected in Nigeria. This paper aims to contribute to these debates. The paper explores how the right to a healthful environment can be derived and secured using other enforceable provisions in the Nigerian Constitution, and through other domesticated international instruments in Nigeria, to enhance access to environmental justice in Nigeria.

Keywords: Constitution, Environment, Health

---

* LLB (Unilorin), B.L (Abuja), LLM (Unilorin) PhD (IIUM, Malaysia), Lecturer, Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ilorin, Nigeria.

CHALLENGES OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION OF NIGERIA

Hakeem Ijaiya, Ph.D*

ABSTRACT

The Niger Delta Region of Nigeria produces a significant portion of the aggregate oil wealth of Nigeria. Since 1956 when oil was first struck in Oloibiri in Southern Nigeria, the Niger Delta region has accounted for over 90 per cent of Nigeria’s oil income. However, the region has perennially suffered from environmental neglect, crumbling infrastructures and services, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty and endemic conflict. This has led to calls for oil companies operating in the Niger Delta to demonstrate the value of their investments to Nigeria by undertaking increased community development initiatives that provide direct social benefits such as local employment, new infrastructure, schools, and improved health care delivery. This paper examines the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that is, how companies manage their oil exploration and business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society. It reviews the evolution and growth of the CSR concept under international law and the key institutions that have spearheaded this growth. Since the emergence of the CSR concept in Nigeria, it has been espoused mainly as an optional and non-obligatory responsibility for oil companies. There is currently no national law in the area of CSR. More so, many of the International Corporate Responsibility Instruments, such as, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises; United Nations (UN) Global Compact and the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work are soft law instruments with less binding status in international law and by extension in Nigeria. This paper examines the need for a more coherent and binding recognition of the CSR principle in Nigeria. In a country such as Nigeria, where the principles and benefits of democratic governance are still fragile, there is a need for a dynamic and step-wise approach through which the CSR concept could be continually mainstreamed into national laws and policies. Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Niger Delta, Environment

BIO PROSPECTING IN NIGERIA: EVALUATING THE ADEQUACY OF LAWS AND PRACTICES AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

Chris Chijioke Ohuruogu* and Chukwudumebi Okoye-Asoh**

ABSTRACT

Bio-prospecting is a subject of interest especially as to its utility in environmental protection. It is the purposeful evaluation of wild biological materials in search of valuable new products and involves the application of advanced technologies to develop new pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, cosmetics, flavorings, fragrance, industrial-enzymes and other products from biodiversity. On the face of it, bio-prospecting is a major threat to the continuous flow of genetic resources. However when substituted with other consumption patterns or when properly regulated such that benefits derived from it are invested in technologies geared towards conserving the databank of the bio resources, or the provision of the needs of the local peoples whose practices mount undue pressure on the resources, it becomes a viable tool for resource conservation. This paper examines the regulatory regime of bio-prospecting in Nigeria from international and national perspectives to evaluate their adequacy. It also examines the environmental implications of the state of affairs and recommends the protection of the local peoples’ interest, and their involvement in strategic planning and policy formulation on bio prospecting, amongst others as a way of bio conservation to profit bio-prospecting.

Keywords: Bio-prospecting, environment, biodiversity

---

* Professor of Law, Department of Public and International Law, College of Law Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria. Correspondence email: ccoh2008@googlemail.com.

** Legal Consultant, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.