Hazardous waste and the right to a healthy environment: reflections on the LIDHO decision of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights

The illicit transboundary movement of hazardous waste remains a serious global challenge and Africa remains a prime destination for hazardous waste generated in the Global North. This situation obtains despite the existence of international and regional legal frameworks regulating the transboundary movement of hazardous waste. Hazardous waste poses a serious threat to the enjoyment of human rights and specifically, the right to a healthy environment. Although not captured in a global treaty, the right to a healthy environment is provided for in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the domestic constitutions of numerous African states and it was also recognised by the United Nations General Assembly in 2022. This case commentary interrogates the nexus between the illicit transboundary movement of hazardous waste and the enjoyment of the right to a healthy environment in the African context, focusing on the case of Ligue Ivoirienne des Droits de l’Homme and Others v Côte d’Ivoire (LIDHO case), decided by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Court). Prior to the LIDHO decision neither the African Court nor the African Commission had considered the right to a healthy environment in the context of harm caused by hazardous waste. Taking a doctrinal legal approach, this case commentary considers how this decision contributes to the jurisprudential growth of the right to a healthy environment and the obligations of states and private entities in upholding this right, especially in the face of harm caused by hazardous waste. This commentary concludes that the LIDHO decision significantly expanded the jurisprudence on the right to a healthy environment inter alia by laying the foundation for extending the obligation to respect the right to a healthy environment to non-state entities and ordering far-reaching national legal and regulatory reforms.