Revisiting the non-justiciability issue in environmental rights dialogue in Nigeria

Abstract

The campaign for the recognition of environmental rights is progressively gaining momentum in Nigeria as the degradation of the environment continues without an effective legal framework for abatement. While environmental rights are yet to find general acceptability, legal scholars, environmentalists, non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders have continued to insist that it is possible to enforce environmental rights in Nigeria as though they were a fundamental right's claim. The article, in the face of the currency of environmental rights’ discourse in Nigeria and the recent UN Resolution recognising environmental rights as universal human rights, seeks to revisit the constitutional challenges associated with environmental rights’ claims in Nigeria, particularly, the non-justiciability slogan which has often been wielded as a sword of Damocles against arguments in favour of the right. The article observes that without necessarily constitutionalising environmental rights, a purposeful interpretation of Chapter IV of the Constitution could place Nigeria among countries with enforceable environmental rights in the world.