JUSTICIABILITY OF ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS: WHITHER THE NIGERIAN LAW?

Abstract

This paper analyses the enforceability of the right to a clean and safe environment in Nigeria. It identifies the 1999 Constitution, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the National Environmental Standard and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) Act 2007, and the Climate Change Act 2021 as relevant instruments and analyses them in order to establish the extent to which they support the enforcement of the right to a clean and safe environment in Nigeria. With respect to the 1999 Constitution, it argues that the non-justiciable right to a clean and safe environment has been strengthened by the pro-environmental attitude of the Nigerian Courts who have interpreted it in several instances to be ingrained in the right to life making it enforceable. However, the uncertainty of judicial precedents in Nigeria calls for constitutionalism of its enforceability to strengthen it in Nigeria. This paper interrogates the right to a clean and safe environment as provided for in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights Act. It argues that why it is clearly justiciable, that its conflict with the constitution which provides for its non-justiciability of the right introduces uncertainties as to its validity. Among other things, it is argued that the exclusion of petroleum from the orbit of the NESREA Act and, the lack of an enforcement mechanism for the Climate Change Act are limiting factors in this context. Key recommendations were made including constitutionalising a justiciable right to a clean and safe environment in Nigeria