Comparative Analysis on the Legal and Institutional Protection of Environmental Rights in Ethiopia and Kenya

Abstract

The right to clean and healthy environment is one of the fundamental human rights recognized in international and regional human right instruments. The Ethiopian environmental right protection system when compared with that of the Kenyan system has profound legal and institutional gaps. Thus, the principal aim of this thesis is, by comparative examination of the Ethiopian and Kenyan legal and institutional framework on environmental rights, what gaps may the former have getting a lesson from the latter. It has further explored the possible challenges to ensure the realization of such rights in Ethiopia by a comparatively analysing with that of the Kenyan legal system. As a means of getting a lesson, the paper has evaluated the legal and institutional frameworks in Ethiopia and Kenya including the Constitution and other subsidiary legislations that are specifically dealt about environmental rights. In doing so, the normative (doctrinal) approach has been employed so that laws, books, articles reports, and cases on the area have been evaluated. For this purpose, the researcher has divided the paper into four chapters in which chapter one is the introductory part. Chapter two is the international and regional scenarios on the protection of environmental rights while chapter three is the legal and institutional frameworks on the right to environment in Ethiopia and Kenya as well as the gaps that the former has experienced in comparison with the latter. Finally, chapter four is all about conclusion and recommendation. The findings of this research has indicated that the Ethiopian environmental law proclamations, in addition to having few legal rules, it doesn’t tell us what the reciprocal duties of citizens in the protection of the environment. On the other hand, there are also a number of important institutions in the Kenyan system, that are lacking in the Ethiopian system, like NEMA, PCC, NET and NEC that can play a crucial role towards the protection of these environmental rights. Finally, the research has put recommendations some of which are the Ethiopian environmental protection system to proclaim what the reciprocal duties of citizens are with regard to the protection of the environment, to make clear that the modality of promoting members of the Authority and the Regional Environmental Agency, Ethiopia to establish a special environmental tribunal whose judicial power is to see only environmental cases, to collect funds for the restoration of future potential environmental damages from investment projects.