environmental justice

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JUDICIAL ATTITUDE TO ENVIRONMENTAL LITIGATION AND ACCESS TO ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN NIGERIA: LESSONS FROM KIOBEL

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Rufus Akpofurere Mmadu *

ABSTRACT

This paper examines judicial attitude to environmental litigation and access to environmental justice in Nigeria. The paper employs expository analysis as its methodology in discussing the theme. Essentially, the paper finds that environmental litigations in Nigeria are bedeviled by legal technicalities such that victims of environmental pollution and degradation are ultimately denied access to justice. Ranging from issue of locus to territorial and subject matter jurisdiction, victims of oil spill and environmental degradation are often left without judicial remedies. The paper finds that consequently, the people of the Niger Delta are increasingly losing confidence in the judiciary both at the domestic and international level. This has heightened militancy and youths’ restiveness in the area leading to loss of revenues and sometimes lives. The paper notes with concern the recent trend of outsourcing justice, as evident in attempts to bring environmental pollution cases in Nigeria before domestic courts abroad. For example the celebrated case of Kiobel v Royal Dutch Shell, heard in United States of America. Kiobel is arguably a setback to this approach of searching for environmental justice before international courts and a reminder on the need to look inwards. This paper calls for judicial flexibility and a more proactive approach to legal reasoning by Nigerian courts, in order to put environmental matters on the front burner of our national discourse. Unless and until environmental justice is entrenched in Nigeria through judicial activism, Governmental inertia and unwillingness to provide remedies for victims of environmental degradation may continue to fuel militancy in the years ahead.

Keywords: Environmental Litigation, Access to Justice, Nigeria.

* Rufus Akpofurere MMADU, LL.M, LL.B (Lagos); Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria; Lecturer, College of Law, Osun State University, Osogbo and also Mphil/Doctorial candidate of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. Email: mmadurufus@yahoo.com, rufusmmadu@uniosun.edu.ng . Tel: +2348035319283, +2348127017430.

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THE SEARCH FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN THE NIGER DELTA AND CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR TORTS: HOW KIOBEL ADDED SALT TO INJURY.

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Rufus A Mmadu*

ABSTRACT

Right from the beginning Man has been given the privilege by his Creator to tender the earth and take dominion over his environment. But for the impoverished people of the Niger Delta region, the mainstay of Nigeria’s oil wealth, the situation is ironically abysmal. The region has been the scene of protest, sometimes violence, against the repressive tendencies of the Nigerian state and against the recklessness, exploitative and environmentally unfriendly activities of oil multinationals. The issues of environmental injustice and human rights violations are the central focus of this article. The article examines the concept of corporate accountability for tortuous acts and faults Kiobel as a miscarriage of justice against a people so callously and criminally oppressed. Kiobel’s pronouncement that corporations cannot be held liable for egregious abuses under international law is a sad note on global war against environmental injustice. The paper warns that Kiobel could foster situations in which corporations become immune from liability for human rights violations. The war against environmental degradation is too important to be clogged in web of legal technicalities else man would have no environment to live in.

Keywords: Environmental Justice, Niger Delta, Corporate Accountability, Torts, kiobel

* LL.M, LL.B (Lagos); Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria; Lecturer, College of Law, Osun State University, Osogbo and also MPhil/Doctoral candidate of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. Email: mmadurufus@yahoo.com, rufusmmadu@uniosun.edu.ng . Tel: +2348035319283, +2348127017430.