Exploring the Rights-Based Climate Litigation in Tanzania.

Yeyeye, Gervas Emmanuel (2025) Exploring the Rights-Based Climate Litigation in Tanzania. Doctoral thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the potential of rights-based approaches as legal tools for advancing climate justice through judicial mechanisms in Tanzania. It highlights the country's increasing vulnerability to climate impacts alongside the limited integration of international climate obligations and the absence of a coherent rights based legal framework. Against this backdrop, the research critically evaluates Tanzania's legal and institutional structures to assess their capacity to facilitate rights-based climate litigation. Drawing on comparative international best practices, the study further proposes reform strategies to enhance environmental justice and strengthen the national climate governance framework. Grounded in doctrinal research, the study scrutinizes constitutional, statutory, and international legal provisions. This approach is enhanced by empirical analysis and a comparative study of legal developments in South Africa, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, and Germany, jurisdictions offering valuable models for climate litigation. The study finds that Tanzania's legal and institutional framework inadequately addresses climate change, lacking explicit environmental rights, effective enforcement, and meaningful access to justice due to weak judicial mechanisms and the dominance of political and economic interests. Consequently, the thesis recommends comprehensive legal and institutional reforms, capacity building within the judiciary, integration of climate science into legal reasoning, and increased public participation to establish a rights-based framework for climate governance. Generally, the research underscores the urgent need for transformative legal and institutional action to ensure equitable and effective climate justice in Tanzania.

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