The IPI global network, together with other members of the Environmental Rights Africa (ERA) coalition, submitted input for the development of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) General Comment on the Right to Environment.
IPI’s contribution called for the instrument to expressly recognise climate and environmental journalists as vital to the realisation of a satisfactory, clean, healthy and sustainable environment under Article 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Climate and environmental journalists play a critical public interest role by informing communities, exposing environmental harm and enabling public participation and accountability.
IPI recommends that the General Comment should:
- Explicitly recognise the essential role of independent media and climate and environmental journalism in advancing the right to a healthy environment;
- Call on States to guarantee media freedom and create an enabling legal, policy and economic environment for public interest environmental reporting;
- Recognise the threats faced by climate and environmental journalists and require States to prevent attacks, protect journalists and ensure access to effective remedies;
- Call for the decriminalisation of defamation, false news and similar offences that are used to suppress public interest reporting;
- Require proactive disclosure of environmental information by public authorities and relevant private bodies and strengthen implementation of regional access to information standards;
- Emphasise the importance of meaningful public participation, transparency and access to justice in environmental decision-making; and
- Recognise SLAPPs as a serious threat to journalists and environmental defenders and call on States to adopt comprehensive measures to prevent and address abusive litigation, including anti-SLAPP legislation, stronger judicial safeguards and improved access to legal assistance for victims.
We urge the African Commission to meaningfully consider the entirety of the submission in developing the General Comment to reinforce normative standards for the right to a healthy environment, while protecting and supporting the media as a key stakeholder.
Read the full IPI submission here Read the full ERA submission here