Natural Justice (NJ)

Natural Justice is a non-governmental organization consisting of a team of pioneering lawyers and legal experts who specialize in human rights and environmental law in pursuit of social and environmental justice for communities in Africa, with hubs in South Africa, Kenya and Senegal. NJ’s work is informed by the values, knowledge and self-determination of communities resisting and living on the front lines of dispossession, extractivism climate change, and biodiversity loss and therefore strives to enhance the collective rights of people and protect the sacred relationships that indigenous peoples and local communities have with nature through three main pillars being Affirming and Securing Rights to Lands, Resources and Knowledge (policy); Defending Rights against Environmental and Social Impacts (litigation); and Standing with Communities (legal empowerment).

NJ supports communities to know the law, use the law and shape the law thus playing a key role at the national, regional, and international levels by enhancing community access to land and governance of natural resources, contributing to the struggle against harmful extractive and infrastructure developments, supporting processes for recognising traditional knowledge and access to benefit sharing, supporting community rights within conservation and customary use of biodiversity, and strengthening community actions towards the climate crisis. Additionally, in 2021, NJ established the Environmental Lawyers Collective in Africa (ELCA) which seeks to anchor the growing movement of African lawyers by amplifying their actions and supporting their legal actions to protect the continent from environmental and climate injustice. Further, in collaboration with the International Land Coalition, NJ initiated the African Environmental Defenders Fund, which provides emergency funds and legal support to land and environmental defenders facing reprisals for their activism. Currently, NJ in coalition with ERA (Environmental Rights Africa) and other land defenders’ organizations, are seeking to develop a treaty in Africa that replicates the Escazu Agreement of Latin America and the Caribbean.