NGO Forum urges Africa’s human-rights commission to back recognition of ecocide as an international crime
Summary
Banjul, The Gambia - The Forum on the Participation of NGOs (“NGO Forum”) held ahead of the 85th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has adopted a civil-society resolution urging the Commission to support recognition of ecocide, defined in the resolution (drawing on the work of the Independent Expert Panel, 2021) as ‘unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment’. The resolution also encourages African states to strengthen domestic legal protections.
The NGO Forum is a continent-wide civil-society platform convened immediately before each ACHPR session to debate priorities and adopt resolutions that are transmitted to Commissioners at the opening of the session. This session took place in Banjul, The Gambia, where the ACHPR Secretariat is based. The ACHPR is the African Union’s principal human-rights commission, mandated to promote and protect rights under the African Charter and to guide states’ compliance.
The resolution, “Resolution on Strengthening the Recognition of Ecocide as an International Crime in Africa,” was developed through a Special Interest Group on safeguarding people and the planet, facilitated by the REED Center for Social Change and the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS) in collaboration with Stop Ecocide International. The session was chaired by Madam Hannah Forster (ACDHRS) and moderated by Voke Ighorodje (REED Center).
The resolution encourages States Parties to the Rome Statute to support an amendment adding ecocide to the ICC’s jurisdiction. It also invites Member States to incorporate ecocide, or equivalent offences, into national legislation and proposes an ACHPR working group on environmental crime and reparations in Africa. The resolution recognises Africa’s particular vulnerability to environmental harm, welcomes AMCEN’s 2025–2027 prioritisation of ecocide law, and points to an expanding body of international jurisprudence on state obligations to safeguard ecosystems.
Voke Ighorodje, Executive Director of REED Center for Social Change, said:
“Across the world, it is the most vulnerable states and communities that are breathing new life into international law. Africa is showing that moral authority born of lived experience can lead where political power often stalls. By adopting this resolution, civil society is calling for a clear legal boundary. Those who inflict the gravest harm on the environment must be held criminally accountable. From the Pacific islands to Africa, frontline nations are shaping the legal tools needed to defend the ecological foundations on which all our lives depend. This is what principled leadership looks like in an age of planetary breakdown.”
You can read the full civil-society resolution here.