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PhD Researcher Liesl Muller is appointed as an external expert to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
PhD researcher Liesl Muller joins the African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child as an external expert.
Liesl Muller, one of our PhD researchers, was recently appointed by the African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child to advise their Working Group on Climate Change and Children’s Rights. She will act as an external expert for a term of two years during which she will be closely involved with the work of the Committee in promoting a child rights-based approach to climate action on the African continent.
The Committee was established in 2001 in terms of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. It is comprised of 11 independent experts from different African countries and is mandated to promote and protect the rights of the child and welfare of the child. Their Climate Working Group is made up of four committee members and four external experts.
The Working Group’s two-year plan involves various important activities, including publishing the first continent wide report on children’s rights and climate change in Africa; and providing targeted resources such as guidelines for implementing a child rights approach to both states and civil society. Coupled with capacity building, the Working Group’s work promises to improve state and shadow reporting, leading to better monitoring of the African Children’s Charter’s implementation. The Committee adopted the campaign “1.1 too high!” focusing on prioritising adaptation, inclusion of children’s rights in national action plans, and availability of remedies for loss and damage.
The Committee is also mandated to consider communications on violations of the Charter submitted to it by individuals and states. No climate related communications have yet been brought to the Committee but considering the boom in child-led climate litigation globally, a communication may well be forthcoming. Considering its previous findings, as well as the legal framework within which it operates, the Committee is well placed to provide progressive jurisprudence on children’s rights and climate change. We are delighted that the Youth Climate Justice Project’s work will feed into these developments.
For her role, Liesl will draw on her research with the Youth Climate Action Project, providing her with current and in-depth acquaintance with child rights approaches in youth climate action. She also draws on her experience as a child rights advocate and lawyer for the past 10 years, during which she has directly assisted individual and groups of children with legal claims involving human rights, including most recently in the litigation involved youth-led climate cases in South Africa.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the body monitoring the implementation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, has previously considered and made recommendations in groundbreaking cases on climate, in particular in relation to indigenous peoples. The African Charter provides fertile ground for such decisions by being the first international treaty which recognises the right of peoples to a “general satisfactory environment favourable to their development”. This inclusion has resulted in climate rights themed resolutions and recommendations which consider intersections between various rights and is sensitive to the need for development.
In a continent with 32 of the 45 countries worst affected by climate change, and where children are projected to be doubly affected by the physical effects of climate change, the Committee’s thematic focus is timely. We particularly hope that the Committee will act as a catalyst for children’s participation in climate related law and policy making, and for the amplification of their voices in all platforms where their futures are discussed.