Climate Litigation in South Africa and Nigeria: Legal Opportunities and Gender Perspectives

Abstract

This chapter explores climate change cases from South Africa and Nigeria through a legal opportunity structures (LOS) lens. Understanding the effects of LOS is critical for sustaining climate litigation momentum across countries. Further, the academic literature on climate litigation hardly covers gender issues, even though women’s vulnerability to adverse climate change impacts and limited access to resources for adaptation are widely acknowledged. The receptivity of the existing LOS to women’s unique experiences affects their ability to engage in climate litigation and prospects for accessing climate justice through the courts. The chapter, therefore, undertakes a gender-sensitive analysis of the relevant literature, laws and decisions of courts from South Africa and Nigeria to conceptualize the LOS for climate litigation.