Thank you so much, Marcus, for that introduction and for welcoming me here.

I actually expected fewer people given the point at which we are in the term, so quite

pleasantly surprised that you made the time to be here.

I would like to share some perspectives on how the African human rights system is dealing

with issues that are related to climate protection.

I must say right at the outset that we haven't had any litigation that tries to achieve this

right to a safe climate, but there's a number of developments that I would like to share

with you that point towards some positive moves in that direction.

Okay, there we go.

So I'm going to make a brief introduction.

I think the context of climate change, I would suspect, is known to all of us and on the

continent.

Maybe I'll highlight a couple of things.

I'd like to briefly introduce the African human rights system.

It's key features in relation to what we're talking about this evening.

And then to see how the system is placing human rights protection, the devices that

we are familiar with through the normative framework, but also the institutions and the

procedures as a basis for climate action.

And then I will conclude with a few perspectives about how I see the contribution of African

human rights institutions towards the protection of the climate.

Okay.

Now we know that climate litigation is becoming more and more a part of the toolbox that we

have in order to achieve a safe climate, particularly trying to encourage states to make true their

commitments towards adaptation and mitigation, and to ensure that the delay that we keep

experiencing perhaps is reversed.

Now a lot of this litigation is happening in the West, focusing on individual rights

that are impacted by lack of climate action.

But there is an indirect category of climate litigation or what I would like to call indirect

litigation, where claims about a safe climate and the impacts of climate change on individual

rights is not central to the cases, but where the remedies sort have the effect of preventing

greenhouse gas emissions or preserving the various carbon sinks that we have in our various

ecosystems.

And so in this presentation, I focus on this category of litigation, because this is where

a lot of the actions within the African human rights system is happening.

Now as a matter of framing the context of the importance of climate action, it's important

perhaps to highlight that Africa continues to experience some really tough adverse effects

of climate change, despite the fact that a lot of African politics have not contributed

to the problem.

So when you look at a number of countries in East Africa, as well as Southern Africa,

there's been persistent drought, at least for the last six years.

It's particularly acute in places like Somalia, parts of Ethiopia, northern Kenya, where they

haven't seen rain for many, many months.

But the problem is prevalent throughout, and we see how much livelihoods have been damaged

in these areas.

In Southern Africa, there's been this alternating between drought and floods.

So the last couple years, just when people are trying to get back to their feet and all

of that, and the floods come, and again, drought follows that.

So we know that these adverse effects of climate change are here for the long term, looking

at the patterns over the last 20 years or so.

So there's need to take action in relation to this problem.