ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS IN ETHIOPIA: SHIFTING FROM THEORY TO PRACTICAL REALIZATION

Desalegn Amsalu*

ABSTRACT

Influenced by developments in the international environmental rights law, most African countries now incorporate in their Constitutions or other major legal documents environmental rights for their citizens. The 1995 Federal Constitution of Ethiopia, its environmental policy, and all subsequent legislation also incorporate environmental rights that are in the major international environmental law conventions. These rights include the right to a clean and healthy environment, the right to access justice, as well as the right to information and public participation. However, the environmental rights that are included in the country’s Constitution, policies and laws are simply rhetorical. For example, in Addis Ababa, the country’s capital, residents suffer from such horrendous odour oozing out of the putrefaction of the environment. Consequently, children and even adults are affected by various diseases such as respiratory and skin infections. Some residents even abandon their homes, not being able to resist the pollution of their environment. The government’s lack of human resource capacity and appropriate technology to promote a healthy and safe environment; its preference of economic growth over environmental protection; environmental corruption; and poor responsiveness of the public, the policy makers, the executive, as well as the judicial organs such as the police and the court to environmental rights, are among the major causes of poor implementation. The article examines how environmental rights could be given due attention as an extension of basic human rights and as a tool for sustainable economic development.

Keywords: Environmental rights, theory, practice, factors for poor enforcement, Ethiopia.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v9i2.4

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* Desalegn Amsalu LLB (Hons), MA, and PhD (Addis Ababa University), currently legal researcher at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. Email: desalegn.amsalu@aau.edu.et. This work is done based on funding from Addis Ababa University under a thematic research award from 2014-2016. Any opinion, finding and conclusion or recommendation expressed in this article is that of the author only

THE CLASH OF PROPERTY AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION OF NIGERIA

Sunday Bontur Lugard*

ABSTRACT

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria, home to about 30 million people, is one of the world’s most prominent deltas. Petroleum exploration in this region has been ongoing for over fifty years and revenue from this activity is at present the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. Granted that it is impracticable to undertake petroleum operations without some negative impact on the environment, a good deal of this pollution can be mitigated. The International Oil Companies (IOCs) are complacent about pollution reduction to a sustainable level; regulatory agencies are either compromised or lack the required expertise or equipment to monitor and enforce compliance with extant environmental protection laws and regulations. The pursuit of the IOCs’ property right over petroleum resources has set them against the other stakeholders’ right to a healthy environment. The clash of these rights can best be addressed by ascribing “collective property” and not “private property” right to the acreage over which they have been granted licence to prospect for, explore or mine petroleum resources.

Keywords: Property rights, natural resource exploration, environmental law.

Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v6i2.3

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* Lecturer, Department of International Law and Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, University of Jos, Nigeria; lugards@unijos.edu.ng.

SAFE DISPOSAL OF MUNICIPAL WASTES IN NIGERIA: PERSPECTIVES ON A RIGHTS BASED APPROACH

Nnamdi Ikpeze*

ABSTRACT

The safe disposal of municipal waste is imperative for the realisation of several fundamental human rights, most especially the right to life and the right to a healthy environment. Nigeria is a signatory to and has ratified the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR). Ratification of the ACHPR comes with the attendant responsibility of maintaining a healthy environment. The entitlement to a healthy environment is also a constitutional right in Nigeria, albeit in a non-justifiable form. However challenges abound in the area of municipal waste management which negate the realisation, protection and fulfilment of the right to a healthy environment as enshrined in both the Constitution and the ACHPR. While rudimentary frameworks for waste disposal exist especially in the form of municipal and environmental laws and judicial remedies, poor funding, lack of modern scientific methods of waste management, treatment and disposal, the non-enforcement cum non-justiciability of laws and poor access to judicial remedies have resulted in the near-total failure of responsible municipal authorities to execute their mandate thus leading to an appalling state of affairs in the management of municipal solid waste in most parts of Nigeria. It may seem that the municipal authorities have contributed largely to the failure of the system by not improving capacity to meet with contemporary responsibilities. Furthermore, the prevailing piecemeal approach of treating safe disposal of wastes as an “add on” arguably demonstrates an institutional failure and inadequate understanding by authorities that without proper waste management, the realisation, protection and fulfilment of a number of social and economic human right in Nigeria will remain illusory. This paper discusses the need for a more human rights based understanding of the need for proper management and safe disposal of municipal wastes in Nigeria. This paper analyzes the existing legal framework on waste management in Nigeria and elaborates on relevant provisions of law, judicial decisions and legislative interventions that support a rights-based understanding of waste management and disposal in Nigeria; and concludes by recommending positive actions and reforms that could give impetus to a more robust and efficient waste management system in Nigeria.

Keywords: Nigeria, municipal, waste disposal, environment, environmental rights.

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* LL.B, LL.M, B.L, ACI.Arb. Lecturer, College of Law, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Research Fellow at the OGEES Institute, ABUAD, Doctoral candidate at the Department of Public and Private Law, Faculty of Law, Nnamdi Azikiwe Universtiy, Awka, Anambra E-mail 1: pioneer183@yahoo.co.uk, E-mail 2: nikpeze@ogeesinstitute.edu.ng