ACHPR
As part of its 85th Ordinary Session, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) hosted a panel on the right to the environment in Africa on 23 October 2025, convened by the Working Group on Extractive Industries, the Environment, and Human Rights.
The panel was composed of Ernest Yaw Anim (Parliament of Ghana), Fiona Illiff (American Bar Association), and Voke Ighojordje (Rights Education, Empowerment, and Development Centre for Social Change), and was chaired by Commissioner Solomon Aleye Dersso, Chairperson of the Working Group on Extractive Industries, the Environment, and Human Rights.
Africa is faced with grave environmental crises.Commissioner Solomon Ayele Dersso
The discussion centered around a number of topics, notably the ACHPR Resolution on Developing a General Comment on the Protection and Promotion of the Right to the Environment in Africa, adopted in June 2025; this general comment is still being developed. The discussion also covered the possibility of adopting a crime of ecocide in Africa for severe environmental degradation as a way to punish the most egregious offenders.
Finally, the discussion went over the issues and risks faced by environmental human rights defenders in Africa, who are unduly targeted by state and non-state actors in their form of attacks and threats in retaliation for their work. The discussion also mentioned the possibility of adopting an environmental rights agreement for Africa, something advocated for by the Environmental Rights Africa (ERA) Coalition, an initiative supported by ISHR.
The panel highlighted the close interconnection between the protection and promotion of human rights, the protection of the natural environment, the fight against climate change, indigenous peoples’ rights, and responsible business conduct. This is particularly true in the African context, in light of the continent’s simultaneously low environmental footprint and high environmental vulnerability.
The NGO Forum, ahead of the 85th ACHPR’s session in Banjul, held several panel discussions on the AU 2025 theme 'Reparations: Justice for Africans and People of African Descent' with different focuses, including the regional and UN standards on reparations, economic justice, as well as discrimination in Africa based on work and descent.
At the 11th Session of the Open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations, ISHR urged all States to include and protect language that explicitly safeguards human rights defenders, impacted communities and the environment.
Ahead of the 85th session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the NGO Forum convened a panel on the issue of 'Environmental Justice and Indigenous Peoples' Rights'.
