Victory For Kenya S Ogiek As African Court Sets Major Precedent For Indigenous Peoples Land Rights

African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights v the Republic of KenyaIn May 2017, the Ogiek indigenous community of Kenya successfully challenged the denial of their land rights before the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights (‘the Court’). Following an eight-year legal battle, the Court found that the Kenyan government violated seven separate articles of the African Charter in a land rights case that dates back to colonial times.This landmark ruling recognised that the Ogiek – and therefore many other indigenous peoples in Africa – have a leading role to play as guardians of local ecosystems, and in conserving and protecting land and natural resources. This briefing sets out a brief history of the case, the key arguments of the Ogiek and the Kenyan Government’s response, and provides an analysis of the Court’s judgement. The briefing also places the ruling in context and looks at the wider impact beyond Kenya.

Since time immemorial, indigenous communities in Kenya have been victims of land rights abuses. With the advent of colonization, these communities were dispossessed of their lands which were given to British settlers. Subsequent post-colonial governments did nothing to remedy these historical land injustices, instead, this history of arbitrary dispossession continues under the guise of conservation. The Ogiek of the Mau Forest in Kenya are among Africa’s last remaining forest dwellers and have lived there since time immemorial. To them, the Mau Forest is a home, school, cultural identity and way of life that provides the community with an essential sense of pride and destiny. In fact, the term ‘Ogiek’ literally means ‘caretaker of all plants and wild animals’.For decades, Ogiek have been routinely subjected to arbitrary forced evictions from their ancestral land without consultation or compensation, first by colonial authorities and subsequently by the Kenyan government. Ogiek rights over their traditionally owned lands have been systematically denied and ignored, while the government has allocated land to third parties, including political allies, and permitted substantial commercial logging to take place without sharing any of the benefits with the Ogiek. The culmination of all these actions has resulted in the Ogiek being prevented from practising their traditional hunter-gatherer way of life, thus threatening their very existence. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to have their grievances addressed by the government, in 2009, the Ogiek, represented by Minority Rights Group International (MRG), the Ogiek People Development Program (OPDP) and the Centre for Minority Rights Development (CEMIRIDE) approached the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Commission) with their grievances. In 2012, the African Commission referred the matter to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the African Court). In 2017, the African Court delivered a landmark judgment on the merits of the case in favour of the Ogiek, holding that the Kenyan Government has breached the community’s rights to their ancestral lands together with numerous other related human rights. Five years later, in June 2022, the Court delivered a reparations judgment which set out remedies for the breaches found in the 2017 judgment. The reparations judgment represents a hard-won and long-awaited victory for the Ogiek after decades of dispossession, non-recognition and marginalization. This judgement is significant because it clarifies the scope and content of state obligations to uphold indigenous peoples’ land rights, and emphasizes the importance of protecting indigenous people’s property rights as integral to the fulfilment of other rights including social and cultural rights. It also emphasizes the importance of an effective consultation process concerning indigenous people. The Court’s Merit and Reparation judgments are novel and represent a beacon of hope for other indigenous peoples across Africa. The African Court’s twin judgments also represent a new paradigm on the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples and on conservation in Africa. ‘This briefing summarizes the Ogiek reparations judgement of 23 June 2022, giving an overview of the years-long struggle of the Ogiek community for the tenure of our ancestral land, the Mau Forest. The landmark judgement of the African Court gives our community access to and ownership of our natural resources in the Mau Forest, considered by us Ogiek to be our supermarket for all and sundry: we get our food, medicine, materials for shelter, and special spiritual nourishment among myriads of things from the forest’, says Daniel Kobei, Founder and Executive Director of OPDP. This brief explains the reparations judgement by the African Court. It gives a brief historical background to the case before the African Court and thereafter describes the considerations of the African Court and the decisions made. Finally, it also discusses the implications that the reparations judgement has, not only for the Ogiek community but also for other indigenous communities in Africa.

This book highlights the cogency and urgency of the protection of indigenous peoples and discusses crucial aspects of the international legal theory and practice relating to their rights. These rights are not established by states; rather, they are inherent to indigenous peoples because of their human dignity, historical continuity, cultural distinctiveness, and connection to the lands where they have lived from time immemorial. In the past decades, a new awareness of the importance of indigenous rights has emerged at the international level. UN organs have adopted specific international law instruments that protect indigenous peoples. Nonetheless, concerns persist because of continued widespread breaches of such rights. Stemming from a number of seminars organised at the Law Department of the University of Roma Tre, the volume includes contributions by distinguished scholars and practitioners. It is divided into three parts. Part I introduces the main themes and challenges to be addressed, considering the debate on self-determination of indigenous peoples and the theoretical origins of ‘indigenous sovereignty’. Parts II and III explore the protection of indigenous peoples afforded under the international law rules on human rights and investments respectively. Not only do the contributors to this book critically assess the current international legal framework, but they also suggest ways and methods to utilize such legal instruments towards the protection, promotion and fulfi lment of indigenous peoples’ rights, to contribute to the maintenance of peace and the pursuit of justice in international relations.

A timely and important examination of the environmental crises, investigating their biophysical, political, economic, and socio-cultural aspects, that reveals why previous conservation efforts failed. The eastern part of the Mau Forest, the most important closed-canopy forest in East Africa, has come under severe threat since the 1990s. In this political ecology Lisa Fuchs exploring the failure of the government-led forest restoration and rehabilitation initiative to 'Save the Mau', launched in 2009, the author examines two of the most contentious issues in Kenya since colonial times: land and the environment. She sheds light on the structural factors and the role of individuals in the forest's destruction and of non-protection and traces the colonial legacy of post-independent environmental conservation policies and practices. In doing so, Fuchs demonstrates that the Mau crisis is more than an environmental crisis: it is also a political, an economic, and a socio-cultural crisis. Though a detailed empirical analysis, the author shows that the 'Mau crisis' led to the near collapse of landscapes and livelihoods in the Mau Forest ecosystem. She traces the implementation of insufficient conservation programmes, which resulted from historical path-dependency and the adoption of global environmental governance blueprints, forest allocation and benefits, and exposes a forest management system that prioritises commercial forest production over biodiversity conservation. Access and entitlements to the highly fertile forest land, and the amalgamation of forest rehabilitation with the reclamation of grabbed public forest are emphasised as a further core contributor to the crisis. The socio-cultural dynamics within and among various forest-dwelling communities, including the indigenous hunting and gathering Ogiek and 'in-migrant' groups, are also analysed. The book highlights that local types of environmentalism are caught between the 'invention of traditions' and 'perverse modernisation' and shows the contradictory effects of the celebrated, highly anticipated but poorly executed 'Save the Mau' initiative, and how the presence of political will to maintain the crisis conditioned its perseverance. Finally, the book proposes realistic alternatives to sustainable forest management in politicised environments, whose relevance and applicability are considerable in this age of anthropogenic 'environmental' crises and conflicts. Published in association with IFRA/AFRICAE

An Introduction to the African Union Environmental Treaties sheds light on the African Union legal regime related to environmental issues and provides expert analysis of how the African Union has transitioned from the former management of natural resources approach to strategies of preservation and protection. This book explores different areas of the environment, from livestock to plants, fertilizers, minerals and marine environment. Ambassador Namira Negm convincingly demonstrates the extent to which environmental issues are of critical importance to the African Union. Together with insightful commentary, the book provides full treaty texts and is an indispensable resource for all those interested in the African Union and environmental legal regimes.

This comprehensive Companion provides a unique overview of UNIDROIT, the primary independent organisation coordinating the practice of international private law across its 65 member states. As the third in the suite of titles covering the ‘three sisters’ of uniform private law and private international law, it considers UNIDROIT’s role in the creation of existing uniform law, as well as posing questions about its future in the sector.

This book presents a cohesive collection of contributions representing an African scholarly voice on some of the most burning and emerging topics and experiences regarding the implementation of REDD+ in Africa from a human rights perspective. It addresses the international human rights obligations of states and non-state actors in the context of REDD+ implementation in Africa; how current practices in various African states reinforce or affect human rights standards; and critical issues concerning the rights of vulnerable groups such as women, Indigenous populations, and forest dwellers in the implementation of REDD+ in Africa. Further, it investigates potential gaps in the existing laws, and how they can be addressed from a comparative point of view. The book also sheds light on the roles that different actors can play in fostering change and identifies best practices in the implementation of REDD+ in Africa. The book offers a rich intellectual resource for various actors in the environmental science, climate and environmental law fields who are often confronted with the challenge of how to manage the delicate balance of forests as a development resource; forests as a climate-change mitigation resource; and forests as a catalyst for the rights of vulnerable populations. The book responds to the imbalance and gaps in REDD+ scholarship. Addressing such lacuna in an edited volume of this nature is essential to the present and future work of practitioners, academics and other actors with a sustained interest in REDD+ in Africa.

Passed in 2000, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and subsequent seven Resolutions make up the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. This agenda is a significant international normative and policy framework addressing the gender-specific impacts of conflict on women and girls, including protection against sexual and gender-based violence, promotion of women's participation in peace and security processes, and support for women's roles as peace builders in the prevention of conflict and rebuilding of societies after conflict. Implementation within and across states and international organizations - and within peace and security operations - has been slow despite significant transnational advocacy in support of the WPS agenda. The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace, and Security brings together scholars, advocates, and policymakers to provide an overview of what we know concerning what works to promote women's participation in peace and security, what works to protect women and girls from sexual and gender-based violence and other human rights violations, and what works to prevent conflict drawing on women's experiences and knowledge of building peace from local to global levels. Just as importantly, it addresses the gaps in knowledge on and the future direction of scholarship on WPS. The handbook particularly aims to build on the findings from the 2015 Global Study of Resolution 1325, commissioned by the UN-Secretary General. Over the course of six sections, the handbook addresses the concepts and early history behind WPS; the theory and practice of WPS; international institutions involved with the WPS agenda; the implementation of WPS in conflict prevention, peace operations, peace building, arms control, human-rights protection, and protection of civilians; connections between WPS and other UN resolutions and agendas; and the ongoing and future challenges of WPS.