Retracing Our Ecological Footsteps: Customary foundations for sustainable redevelopment

The 7th annual Ethics ConferenceThe discourse on property rights has been intractable and part of Kenya’s socio-political history since the advent of colonialism. At the heart of the debate lies the relationship between western approaches and views on property and African traditional approaches. Colonialism brought with it, British legal order. African customary practices and rules were largely replaced with these new western rules, based on the underlying philosophy that traditional modes of property and natural resource management were inimical to sustainability. This conclusion was arrived at as a result of the assessment that African customary modes of property regulation was based on open access, a regime without any protection of property rights, one that led to what Garret Hardin famously referred to as the Tragedy of the Commons.The discourse on property rights has been intractable and part of Kenya’s socio-political history since the advent of colonialism. At the heart of the debate lies the relationship between western approaches and views on property and African traditional approaches. Colonialism brought with it, British legal order. African customary practices and rules were largely replaced with these new western rules, based on the underlying philosophy that traditional modes of property and natural resource management were inimical to sustainability. This conclusion was arrived at as a result of the assessment that African customary modes of property regulation was based on open access, a regime without any protection of property rights, one that led to what Garret Hardin famously referred to as the Tragedy of the Commons

Entrenching Waste Hierarchy for Sustainable Municipal Solid Waste Management in Kenya

Prioritizing waste prevention, reuse, recycling and recovery of materials and energy over disposal through landfilling, offers the waste hierarchy approach (WHA) a sustainable pathway to the management of municipal solid wastes (MSW) and realization of a circular economy. The concept is now part of the legal framework in some developing countries and its implementation has been credited for addressing waste problems linked to high rates of economic growth and urbanization. Even though Africa Vision 2063 prioritizes improvements in urban waste recycling in the continent, much of the MSW generated on the continent is disposed through landfilling evidencing weak adoption of the WHA. This article contends that because WHA is not adequately incorporated in the current legal framework at national and sub-national levels of government, Kenya is unlikely to achieve a circular economy approach necessary for realizing sustainable waste management. Operationalization of the WHA is impeded by inadequate financing, weak institutional coordination, gaps in private sector and informal actors’ engagement and risks associated with investments in large-scale waste recovery initiatives. It is therefore necessary for Kenya to elaborate the WHA in its legal framework at both national and county level, while ensuring adequate financing, involvement of informal actors, incentivization of private sector and adoption of waste planning procedures

The Utility of Epidemiology Evidence in Resolving Compensation Quandary in Kenya: Case Study of Thange Oil Spill, Makueni County, Kenya

Toxic torts that are non-occupational in nature have started to emerge in Kenyan courts posing challenges to legal practitioners regarding proof of causation of injuries owing to the latent nature of injuries from such torts that take time to show. This article examines the nature of environmental incident response mechanisms deployed upon an occurrence of a pollution event and identifies public health assessment as a priority response measure that should be utilised to collect crucial epidemiology evidence. The examination is conducted through documentary review of international and national legal instruments and journal articles as well as interviews and case law analysis. The article proffers that failure to conduct a public health assessment is a missed opportunity for compensation as collection of critical evidence of causation is missed and mitigation of damage is not undertaken for victims of toxic exposure