Climate change and Africa : the normative framework of the African Union

[摘要] There is enough evidence on how climate change consequences will adversely affectAfrica despite the fact that it is the continent that has least contributed to the problem.The international climate change regime recognises Africa's vulnerability to climatechange and provides for special treatment under the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (the UNFCCC). Thus, the international climate changeregime presents an opportunity for African countries to adapt and mitigate theconsequences of climate change through the UNFCCC mechanism. However, theinternational climate change legal regime has not been able to adequately assist Africancountries to address the consequences of climate change under the vulnerabilityprinciple. Although the current international climate change regime requires developedcountries to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Africa needs to take stepsitself to address the problem, because it is most vulnerable to the consequences ofclimate change.The African Union (AU) could play a great role in ensuring that the international climatechange regime addresses the consequences of climate change in the region. This couldbe done through fostering strong African common positions during international climatechange negotiations. A strong common position could strengthen African bargainingpower and might result in more funding, capacity building and technology developmentand transfer for adaptation and mitigation programmes under the UNFCCC-KyotoConference of Parties. However, reaching a strong common position requires thecooperation of the AU member states. In this context, African regional integration is anopportunity for the AU to foster such cooperation among member states. The TreatyEstablishing the African Economic Community (the Abuja Treaty), the Constitutive Actof the AU and the Protocol on the Relations between the AU and Regional EconomicCommunities (RECs) prioritise regional economic integration and call for states'cooperation, but the call has not yet been heeded. To realise deep and viable Africanintegration, there must be a well-structured institutional and legal framework that definesthe relationship between the AU, the AEC and the RECs. African regional integration is also seen as an avenue whereby the AU can create itsown regional climate-change regime. In this regard, the AU's and RECs' normativeframework on climate change is examined in order to assess whether it adequatelyintegrates climate change issues. This study finds that although Africa is mostvulnerable to the consequences of climate change, the AU's and RECs' normativeframework on climate change is weak and inadequate to address the problem. TheFramework should integrate climate change issues in order to achieve sustainabledevelopment. The AU should also ensure that member states ratify the relevant treatiesand protocols (the Maputo Nature Convention and the Protocol establishing the AfricanCourt of Justice and Human Rights) that have not yet been ratified in order that theymay become operational. The Maputo Nature Convention puts sustainable developmentin the forefront of attention as a reaction to the potentially conflicting environmental anddevelopmental challenges facing the continent (such as climate change), but it is not yetin force.This work finds that human rights law can strengthen the AU's role in addressingclimate change through its normative framework. The human rights approach to climatechange under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (the Banjul Charter) isa viable avenue because human rights law forms the basis for states' responsibilitybased on human rights obligations and principles. The extraterritorial application of theBanjul Charter presents an avenue for AU institutions such as the Human RightsCommission and the African Human Rights Court to curb the effects of climate changethrough a human rights lens.The future of the AU is presented within the context of a set of recommendations thatidentify strong African regional integration as an avenue through which the AU canfoster the cooperation of member states to address the consequences of climatechange in the AU's and RECs' normative frameworks. General recommendations aremade on the need for the international climate change regime to pay more attention toissues of funding, capacity building and technology development and transfer on thebasis of the vulnerability principle and in relation to the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Also, the AU needs tostrengthen its legal and institutional structures to ensure deep African integration that iscapable of addressing common challenges such as the consequences of climatechange.

[发布机构] North-West University