In April, MADRE and Innovators 4 Climate Action submitted a legal brief to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). The submission informs the Commission’s Working Group on Extractive Industries, Environment and Human Rights Violations in Africa (WGEI) as it develops a general comment on Article 24 of the African Charter on the right to a satisfactory environment.
Our submission focuses on the right to food for every person – regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and economic status. We show how interpretations of Article 24 have left out the right to food, and that food security and access to food are not only linked to a healthy environment but also obligations under legal frameworks.
Without uncontaminated water and soils, functioning ecosystems and biodiversity, freedom from toxic exposures, and a safe, stable climate, the right to food cannot be realized. Moreover, accessing the fundamental right to food is even more challenging for individuals facing intersecting forms of marginalization and discrimination. We offer ways to interpret the right to food as a substantive component of environmental protection and provide governments with concrete guidance for implementing rights-based, community-centered, and ecologically sustainable food systems across the continent. Our analysis underscores that the right to food is only realizable through the protection and guarantee of a satisfactory environment for all, as provided for in Article 24.
Innovators 4 Climate Action (ICA) is a feminist, LBQ-led climate justice organization operating in coastal Kenya that documents how climate impacts, resource dispossession, and environmental decline exacerbate food insecurity. Their work focuses on queer women, non-binary individuals, and marginalized communities whose experiences are rarely captured in formal climate or development data.
This submission continues MADRE work to advance climate justice using human rights systems. Together with our partners, we are leveraging UN and regional mechanisms – especially in Africa – to secure accountability for environmental damage, strengthen the right to a healthy environment, and drive intersectional, gender-just, and systemic change.
