SERAC and CESR v. Nigeria

The African Commission held that Nigeria violated Articles 4, 14, 16, 18, and 24 of the African Charter by condoning and facilitating environmentally degrading and polluting practices of oil companies in traditional Ogoniland, through military force. Articles 4, 14, 16, 18, and 24 of the African Charter recognize the African peoples' right to life, right to property, right to physical and mental health, right to family and for women and children to be free of discrimination, and right to a satisfactory environment for development, respectively. The Commission urged the Nigerian government to stop military attacks on Ogoni communities, provide access to the territory, conduct an investigation into the human rights violations found by the Commission, provide compensation to the victims of these violations, undertake a comprehensive cleanup of the damages lands and rivers, prepare appropriate environmental and social impact assessments for any future oil development, and provide information on health and environmental risks associated with such development to regulatory and decision-making bodies in communities likely to be affected by oil development.