Women’s Rights, Gender and Climate Change Law in Africa: Advancing an Equity Agenda

Abstract

The consequences of climate change are not only disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable and poorest populations, there are also disparities along gender lines. The connections between climate change, gender equality and women’s rights are not only complicated but also multidimensional. In contrast, most existing studies on gender and climate change action offer a narrow conception of what gender equality and women’s rights mean in the context of climate change action. Considering these thorny linkages between climate change, gender equality and women’s rights in Africa, this article examines the intersection between gender equality, women’s rights and climate change action by focusing on African Union law and the climate change legislative and policy responses from Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The article adopts a doctrinal method and two analytical approaches – the human rights-based approach and insights from feminist approach to law – to argue that since human-rights law places the protection and fulfilment of fundamental human rights and group interests at its core, its legal threshold demands that all actions which can have an impact on human rights, including climate change responses, are bound by its rules. The article argues that gender equality and women’s rights are guaranteed in international and regional law in Africa and therefore provide a legal basis for the integration of gender equality and the protection of women’s rights in national climate change action.