Protecting Environmental and Health Rights in Africa: Mechanisms for Enforcement

Abstract

This paper is the fourth publication to come from the Human Rights and Resource Development Project. The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed significant international activity on human rights issues. A considerable number of the human rights abuses in Africa and elsewhere, that garnered international attention, implicated natural resource exploitation carried out by large multinational corporations, sometimes in conjunction with State entities. This paper, the fourth publication to come from the Human Rights and Resource Development Project, engages in African human rights discourse with particular reference to the mechanisms for protecting and enforcing environmental and health rights. Some of the major themes that run through the paper include the liability of multinational corporations (if any), for human rights violations in Africa, and the incorporation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights into domestic law. The paper concludes that on a regional level, Africa has some legal instruments capable of addressing the human rights challenges facing the continent, but requires the establishment of enforcement institutions with the capacity to implement these laws.