ABSTRACT
The human right to a healthy environment symbolises the identification of a human right that is not dependent on existing protected rights recognised in international covenants. Over the years, the conceptualisation of the human right to a healthy environment received little recognition at the global level during its nascent development until its recent inclusion in the United Nations Resolution in 2022. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and its subsequent covenants made no explicit reference to environmental rights, although environmental concerns were prevalent at the time of their adoption. However, the environmental movement of the 1960s that precipitated the adoption of the Stockholm Declaration in 1972 recognised the complementarity between environmental protection and human rights. Conversely, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Revised African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources provide that developmental and environmental needs should be sustainably, fairly, and equitably met. At the national level, over the last 30 years, environmental constitutionalism has increasingly been recognised in African national constitutions. Sustainable development is perceived as a vehicle to achieve the human right to a healthy environment. The purpose of this chapter is to analyse how the human right to a healthy environment in Africa has emerged and examine the progress of its implementation to achieve sustainable development. We argue and illustrate that the emergence of the human RHE in Africa is traced to the colonial era when efforts were made to propose adequate conservation measures for Africa’s natural resources. While demonstrating the inherent challenges with environmental rights protection, we acknowledge that albeit the right is still nascent in Africa, there is a need for states to ensure that the environment is adequately protected for the benefit of present and future generations.
