Symposium on Climate (Im)Mobility and the African Court’s Climate Advisory Opinion: An Introduction

[Beatrice Njeri is a human rights lawyer, an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and Regional Litigator for Africa at the Global Strategic Litigation Council.

Maria Jose Alarcon is an Assistant Editor for Opinio Juris. She writes in her personal capacity. The views expressed in this post are her own and do not represent those of the Climate Litigation Network (CLN) or any other affiiliate institution.]

In May 2025, the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) together with the African Climate Platform, asked the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR/Court) to clarify the obligations of African States concerning the climate crisis.

This symposium, convened by the Global Strategic Litigation Council explores a particular topic that remains relatively underexplored in the ICJ Advisory Opinion: climate – related (im)mobility; that is, how climate change forces people to move, prevents those who wish to move from doing so, or affects the ability of people and communities to remain in place. The Council is grateful to Opinio Juris for hosting the symposium.

This introductory post summarises the authors’ arguments and reads them through the lens of time: (i) what States owe people before displacement, (ii) at the moment of movement, and (iii) after it. It also identifies questions the Court will need to answer.

The Request before the African Court 

The African Court is not the first international body to address states’ obligations concerning climate change. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea delivered the first climate advisory opinion in May 2024. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights followed in 2025 with Advisory Opinion OC-32/25, and the International Court of Justice delivered its unanimous opinion on 23 July 2025. The upcoming opinion from the African Court presents another opportunity to expand the jurisprudence on this important question, drawing on the region’s unique legal frameworks and precedents. 

The request is broad, asking the Court to interpret the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other relevant instruments, including the Kampala Convention. It relies mainly on the right to a satisfactory environment (Article 24) of the African Charter, giving the Court an opportunity to address some of the gaps by the other advisory opinions on the same topic. 

The Court has not published how many amicus requests it has received, but public records show that the Court continued to admit amici after its extended deadline on 30 March 2026 and over 100 submissions were expected to be filed by that deadline.  

Why Climate (Im)Mobility Matters?

The African system’s approach to human mobility is, to say the least, its most distinctive characteristic: (i) the African Charter protects the rights of peoples as well as individuals (Articles 19–24); (ii) Africa has its own binding refugee treaty, the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention; and (iii) it has its own binding treaty on internal displacement, the Kampala Convention.

Time is the thread that connects the posts, at two levels. First, it organises State obligations into three phases: preventing displacement, protecting people when they move, and finding solutions after they have moved. Second, time is a doctrinal problem in its own right. Climate harm often unfolds slowly, while protection standards have often required a risk that is “imminent”. As a result, the law may recognise the need to move only when it is too late to stay. Several contributors challenge this, and the Court is well placed to address it.

Most contributors are not neutral observers: several drafted the request or amicus briefs, and some write about arguments they made to the Court. Each post states the role of its authors.

The Contributions

Setting the Scene

Dzimbabwe Chimbga, lead drafter of the request, opens the symposium with four reasons why an African opinion still matters. First, it would apply a rights framework built on African realities. Second, national courts could cite it directly, since many African constitutions and laws reflect the Charter. Third, it would give African States, which played a smaller role in earlier climate proceedings, a place on the international record. Finally, it would give African governments a legal basis in negotiations on climate finance and loss and damage.

Before Movement: Preventing Displacement

Nikhita Mani, Bella Mosselmans, Beatrice Njeri and Harj Narulla begin with those who stay. They argue that the Court should recognise a right to stay as an implied right under Articles 12(1) and 24 of the Charter. It would protect people against arbitrary displacement and require States to keep places safe to live in. In this regard, the authors rely on the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, Article 4(4) of the Kampala Convention and the African Commission’s decision in Ogoni. Importantly, they stress that the freedom to remain must exist together with the freedom to leave. Their example of planned resettlement in the Lower Zambezi valley in Mozambique portrays how relocation, presented as adaptation, can potentially harm the people it is meant to protect.

Priyanka Naidoo reads the amicus through a decolonial lens. Relying on Article 21 of the Charter, the author contends that several briefs warn that carbon markets and conservation projects may strip communities of their land and repeat old patterns of exploitation “in a greener form”. Naidoo also tries to answer a likely objection: an opinion grounded in the Charter’s own language on peoples’ rights is not imposed from outside and is for that reason more likely to be accepted by States.

Jacqueline Wambui Wamai turns to what she calls the “displacement of jobs.” She argues that Article 24, read with the right to work (Article 15) and freedom of association (Article 10), already includes a right to a just transition. In addition, Articles 60 and 61 of the Charter allow the Court to draw on ILO standards.

Finally, Francesca Spry, who contributed to an amicus brief in these proceedings, examines the duty of African States to protect communities from climate displacement by regulating the conduct of third parties.

At the Moment of Movement: Protection

Cleo Hansen-Lohrey and Tamara Wood turn to people who cross borders. They focus on the expanded refugee definition in Article I(2) of the OAU Refugee Convention, and in particular on “events seriously disturbing public order”. Accordingly, the authors argue for a progressive interpretation of the Convention that does not separate “natural” from “human” events, and that assesses each person’s risk considering their vulnerability and the response of their State. In their view, this assessment of future risk should not be reserved for imminent physical danger.

Lena Riemer, Andrea Maria Pelliconi and Luca Scheid respond directly to that post. They show that non-refoulement is the common ground in Teitiota, the Inter-American and the ICJ advisory opinions, a matter earlier discussed on this blog. However, the authors criticise the requirement of “imminence” derived from Teitiota, which risks excluding people exposed to slow onset climate harm. Similarly, they trace how German administrative courts already treat climate change as a factor that multiplies risk.

Luwam Dirar and Ian M. Kysel argue that the request does not name refugees or other migrants as a subject for the Court. They ask the Court to fill this gap by drawing on the African Commission’s 2023 Guiding Principles on the Human Rights of All Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers, which define “climate migrants” and “climate refugees” and call on States to create pathways for migration.

After Movement: Solutions and Shared Responsibility

For Riemer, Pelliconi and Scheid, non-refoulement is the floor, not the ceiling. They ask the Court to build duties of cooperation and shared responsibility based on Article II(4) of the OAU Refugee Convention and on practice within the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the East African Community. Likewise, Dirar and Kysel argue that the Commission’s approach makes protection available both before and after movement. Finally, Mani et al point to the Court’s Ogiek reparations judgment, where communal harm led to communal remedies, as a model for peoples tied to a particular place.

Across All Phases

Dr Wambua Kituku, Executive Director of Kituo Cha Sheria in Kenya, one of the organisations that joined the amicus brief on climate displacement, writes on legal empowerment.

Four Questions for the Court

Read together, the authors of this symposium raise four questions for the Court: 

1. First, the majority of contributors ask the Court to go further than the ICJ and the Inter-American Court. How the Court balances ambition and acceptance may shape its authority as much as its answers.
2. Second, the time issue: A right to stay, protection at the border and shared responsibility after movement are not competing options; they are successive stages of the same legal obligation. The Court could therefore frame State obligations around the affected individuals’ real choices: to stay, to move within the country or to seek protection abroad, and clarify that slow onset climate harm can trigger protection before it becomes an imminent risk.
3. Third, several authors warn that responses to climate change are also likely to displace people: planned relocation (Mani and colleagues), carbon markets and conservation projects (Naidoo), and job losses in the energy transition (Wamai). Their common answer is procedural: access to information, real participation, and effective remedies.
4. Finally, beyond the jurisdictional question under Article 4(1) of the Protocol to the Charter,  the Court and the Commission are now interpreting Article 24 at the same time. The Commission has already addressed climate mobility in its Guiding Principles and in Resolutions 491 and 628. If the two bodies reach different readings of Article 24, States will receive mixed guidance. How the Court engages with the Commission’s work will matter both for its jurisdiction and for the coherence of the African human rights system.

Conclusion

This symposium focuses on one underexplored topic of a broad request: climate (im)mobility. One question emerges from this analysis: whether the Court will treat the Commission’s soft law, including the Guiding Principles, as an authoritative interpretation of the Charter under Articles 60 and 61, or only as persuasive guidance. While we make no prediction on when the opinion will come, what is clear is that the Court has a rich record and clear choices to make. We thank all contributors and invite readers to join the discussion.

Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash