The First Climate Law Cohort at JSW Law Takes Bhutan’s voice to the African Court

POSTED ON - Apr 6th, 2026

The Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law has filed a submission as amicus curiae before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the matter of Advisory Opinion No. 001/2025, requested by the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU). The Advisory Opinion concerns the obligations of States under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the context of the climate crisis, and in particular, what duties States bear to adopt mitigation and adaptation measures, to ensure a just transition, and to protect vulnerable populations including indigenous communities, women, children, and future generations. The submission was prepared by the first cohort of LLM-MLS candidates in International Climate Change and Environmental Law with guidance from Professor Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, Professor Payam Akhavan, Professor Ashfaq Khalfan, Professor Markus Gehring, Professor Justin Sobion, Advocate Maria Jose, Advocate Alexander Ramdass, Advocate Hafij Khan, Advocate Zunaida Moosa Wadiwala, and Dr. Elizabeth Nwarueze.

The brief draws on Bhutan’s unique position as one of the world’s only two carbon-negative countries, a status achieved through deliberate constitutional design, including the mandate to maintain a minimum of 60% forest cover for all time, an export ban on raw timber since 1999, and a clean energy base built on hydropower. Yet, Bhutan remains acutely vulnerable to climate change: over 500 of its glaciers have become extinct since the mid-1970s, and thousands of people live at risk of glacial lake outburst floods. The brief presents this paradox of bearing the consequences of a crisis to which one has scarcely contributed as a shared condition with small, landlocked African States such as Eswatini and Lesotho.

The submission engages with three questions posed by PALU, offering Bhutan’s constitutional and governance frameworks as comparative evidence of what is operationally achievable. It discusses the trusteeship doctrine enshrined in Article 5(1) of the Constitution, the Gross National Happiness Policy Screening Tool as a mechanism for integrating ecological resilience into all government decisions, and the complementarity of environmental protection and the right to development, a complementarity the African Charter itself embeds in the text of Article 24. The brief synthesizes the recent climate advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and engages with African Commission jurisprudence including SERAC v Nigeria, and the African Court’s own The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights vs Republic of Kenya judgment.

This submission represents the School’s first engagement with the African regional human rights system and reflects the LLM-MLS programme’s commitment to meaningful South-South dialogue in climate law. The School hopes that Bhutan’s experience with constitutional environmental governance may offer perspectives of value to the Court as it considers the important questions raised by PALU’s request. The candidates are deeply appreciative of this opportunity and grateful to Dasho Dean and the Faculty at JSW Law for their support throughout this process.

AFRICAN COURT ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES’ RIGHTS REQUEST FOR ADVISORY OPINION

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