ABSTRACT
Although developing countries appear to be improving their environmental regulations, environmental injustice persists. This seems to be due to noncompliance and ineffective enforcement caused by many reasons.
In this chapter, the author discusses enforcement powers and practices, compliance monitoring, strategies and mechanisms, public interest litigation, and private enforcement. The chapter shows serious governance gaps and regulatory enforcement failures. It also shows that despite the technical nature of oil, the industry, NGOs, and private enforcers in Nigeria rely on common laws owing to the non-inclusion of citizen suits, and this leads to increased environmental injustice.
It concludes that there is ineffective enforcement in Nigeria causing continued violation of the already weak laws. It also concludes that most enforcement models cannot achieve the best results in Nigeria because of the peculiar socio-political, economic, and other realities, and therefore recommends statutory empowerment of private enforcers as a veritable tool towards achieving EJ using enforcement.
