Environmental procedural rights in Africa with specific reference to South Africa and Uganda

Environmental procedural rights have become one of the means of fundamentally enhancing the promotion of environmental protection and sustainable development. These rights include the right to access to information, public participation, to protest and to access to justice. This book examines the extent to which South Africa and Uganda have domestically implemented environmental procedural rights in three parts: Part I conceptualises environmental rights, discusses the evolution of environmental procedural rights and also gives an overview of environmental procedural rights. Part II critically examines the domestic implementation of environmental procedural rights i.e. access to information, public participation and access to justice in South Africa and Uganda. Part II of this book also makes a case for the consideration of the right to protest as a fourth environmental procedural right. In part III this book concludes by suggesting that although the domestic implementation of environmental procedural rights in South Africa and Uganda has produced a range of environmental governance challenges (such as under funding, inadequate financial resources, competition with other national priorities, corruption, poor implementation, limited manpower and human resources, poor coordination, fragmentation of laws and policies, etc.), the overall picture is actually quite positive. An analysis of the domestic legal regulatory framework on environmental procedural rights of both countries noted that it met most of the applicable normative criteria set out in international and regional instruments. However, this book is of the view that important improvements can still be made and also makes suggestions on how this can be done.