Natural Justice
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Natural Justice is an organisation rooted in the struggles of communities in Africa. As a team of pioneering lawyers and legal experts, we specialise in human rights and environmental law in pursuit of social and environmental justice.
Natural Justice strives to enhance the collective rights of people and protect the sacred relationships that indigenous peoples and local communities have with nature. Our work is informed by the values, knowledge and self-determination of the communities whom we stand in solidarity with.
Through legal empowerment, research, policy influencing and litigation, and as part of coalitions and campaigns, we support communities to know the law, use the law and shape the law.
Natural Justice has three main pillars: Affirming and Securing Rights to Lands, Resources and Knowledge; Defending Rights against Environmental and Social Impacts; and Standing with Communities.
Natural Justice’s focus includes 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 and benefit sharing, supporting community rights within conservation and customary use of biodiversity, and strengthening community actions towards the climate crisis.
Together with the communities we work with, Natural Justice plays a key role at the national, regional and international levels by influencing policy and laws to recognise and enhance the rights of indigenous and local communities, and by inserting customary law considerations into the international frameworks.
Our History
Natural Justice was founded in 2007 in Cape Town by two international lawyers, Harry Jonas and Sanjay “Kabir” Bavikatte. They founded Natural Justice to ensure better protection for the rights and responsibilities of indigenous peoples and local communities at the local, national and international level. A collective of six people ran the organisation while it expanded in geographic scope and programmatic areas.
The organisation sought to combine legal empowerment with social mobilisation to support communities to better understand the effects that laws and legal processes were having on them, and to develop robust, proactive responses to protect and promote their ways of life. This led them to adopt and adapt the concept of ‘community protocols’ in 2008. From the start, Natural Justice was active at the global policy level and played a key role in the recognition of community protocols in the 2010 Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing.
The organisation has subsequently widened the scope of its legal empowerment work, including the adoption of the “paralegal” approach to working with communities, starting in Kenya and expanding into southern Africa. Through the introduction of an initiative aimed at developing conservation standards on human rights, as well as adopting Access and Benefit Sharing models, the organisation sought to promote the rights of indigenous people in terms of their customary knowledge and access to land. The organisation is also in the process of developing a programme aimed at environmental defenders.
The organisation’s geographic focus grew to include three offices on the African continent, as well as one in New York and one in India. In 2016, Natural Justice scaled back to focus solely on communities in Africa. Today, they retain their headquarters in Cape Town (South Africa), have hubs in Cape Town, Nairobi (Kenya) and Dakar (Senegal), and additional staff in Antananarivo (Madagascar), Botswana and Guinea. They also work across a number of other African countries on a project-to-project basis.
Objective
Increased and secure control by Indigenous peoples and local communities over their lands, ecosystems and traditional knowledge, leading to increased community agency and resilience, and providing alternatives, solutions and adaptation to the planetary crisis.
Targets
By 2022:
Community partners have increased secure rights over their lands, territories and/or natural resources.
More ICCAs (Indigenous Peoples and Community Conserved Territories and Areas) are legally recognised and governed by custodian communities.
The participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in the governance of protected areas has improved.
An increased number of communities receive equitable benefits from the utilisation of their traditional knowledge and/or biological resources.
Systems to protect traditional knowledge are developed and accessible to Indigenous peoples and local communities.
The traditional knowledge, practices, governance systems and rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities are recognised and included in national climate strategies and policies.
Human rights are taken into account in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Defending Rights against Environmental and Social Impacts
Objective
A stop to fossil fuel projects, land grabs, and non-compliant extractives and infrastructure projects which harm the environment and violate the rights of Indigenous and local communities.
Targets
By 2022:
Project planning, monitoring and audit processes that fail to adequately consider community views and cause social and environmental harm are challenged.
Climate-related litigation cases are built and taken forward.
Environmental defenders are better protected through the African Environmental Defenders Initiative.
The accountability and implementation of relevant environmental, land and climate laws by governments and corporations is enforced.
Community groups and/or Community Environmental Legal Officers file complaints regarding legal violations affecting their communities.
The impacts of extractive and infrastructure projects on community partners are stopped or mitigated.
Land acquisitions that have failed to consider community concerns are challenged.
A community solidarity fund and an environmental defenders fund are operationalised across the countries that Natural Justice works in. Standing with Communities
Objectives
Increased legal empowerment of Indigenous peoples and local communities to defend their rights, including women’s rights, to reduce environmental injustices, to participate in decision-making from local to global levels, and to hold governments, corporations and multilateral organisations accountable.
Increased organising and movement building with Indigenous peoples and local communities we work with in Africa, led by women and youth, to ensure a strong collective struggle to address the planetary crisis and for more equality, justice and protection of rights.
Targets
By 2022:
Community members have increased their knowledge on relevant land and environmental laws.
Community members and civil society organisation representatives have increased their capacities on legal empowerment methodologies.
Community participation in environmental decision-making laws and regulations is improved.
The customary governance institutions of communities are strengthened through legal empowerment processes.
Best practices on Community Environmental Legal Officers, Community Protocols and Community Auditing are documented and shared.
Best practices on increasing public participation in environmental decision-making processes are developed and shared.
Community campaigns on environmental justice issues across the continent are strengthened.
Natural Justice strives to enhance the collective rights of people and protect the sacred relationships that indigenous peoples and local communities have with nature. Our work is informed by the values, knowledge and self-determination of the communities whom we stand in solidarity with.
Through legal empowerment, research, policy influencing and litigation, and as part of coalitions and campaigns, we support communities to know the law, use the law and shape the law.
Natural Justice has three main pillars: Affirming and Securing Rights to Lands, Resources and Knowledge; Defending Rights against Environmental and Social Impacts; and Standing with Communities.
Natural Justice’s focus includes 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 and benefit sharing, supporting community rights within conservation and customary use of biodiversity, and strengthening community actions towards the climate crisis.
Together with the communities we work with, Natural Justice plays a key role at the national, regional and international levels by influencing policy and laws to recognise and enhance the rights of indigenous and local communities, and by inserting customary law considerations into the international frameworks.
Our History
Natural Justice was founded in 2007 in Cape Town by two international lawyers, Harry Jonas and Sanjay “Kabir” Bavikatte. They founded Natural Justice to ensure better protection for the rights and responsibilities of indigenous peoples and local communities at the local, national and international level. A collective of six people ran the organisation while it expanded in geographic scope and programmatic areas.
The organisation sought to combine legal empowerment with social mobilisation to support communities to better understand the effects that laws and legal processes were having on them, and to develop robust, proactive responses to protect and promote their ways of life. This led them to adopt and adapt the concept of ‘community protocols’ in 2008. From the start, Natural Justice was active at the global policy level and played a key role in the recognition of community protocols in the 2010 Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing.
The organisation has subsequently widened the scope of its legal empowerment work, including the adoption of the “paralegal” approach to working with communities, starting in Kenya and expanding into southern Africa. Through the introduction of an initiative aimed at developing conservation standards on human rights, as well as adopting Access and Benefit Sharing models, the organisation sought to promote the rights of indigenous people in terms of their customary knowledge and access to land. The organisation is also in the process of developing a programme aimed at environmental defenders.
The organisation’s geographic focus grew to include three offices on the African continent, as well as one in New York and one in India. In 2016, Natural Justice scaled back to focus solely on communities in Africa. Today, they retain their headquarters in Cape Town (South Africa), have hubs in Cape Town, Nairobi (Kenya) and Dakar (Senegal), and additional staff in Antananarivo (Madagascar), Botswana and Guinea. They also work across a number of other African countries on a project-to-project basis.
Objective
Increased and secure control by Indigenous peoples and local communities over their lands, ecosystems and traditional knowledge, leading to increased community agency and resilience, and providing alternatives, solutions and adaptation to the planetary crisis.
Targets
By 2022:
Community partners have increased secure rights over their lands, territories and/or natural resources.
More ICCAs (Indigenous Peoples and Community Conserved Territories and Areas) are legally recognised and governed by custodian communities.
The participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in the governance of protected areas has improved.
An increased number of communities receive equitable benefits from the utilisation of their traditional knowledge and/or biological resources.
Systems to protect traditional knowledge are developed and accessible to Indigenous peoples and local communities.
The traditional knowledge, practices, governance systems and rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities are recognised and included in national climate strategies and policies.
Human rights are taken into account in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Defending Rights against Environmental and Social Impacts
Objective
A stop to fossil fuel projects, land grabs, and non-compliant extractives and infrastructure projects which harm the environment and violate the rights of Indigenous and local communities.
Targets
By 2022:
Project planning, monitoring and audit processes that fail to adequately consider community views and cause social and environmental harm are challenged.
Climate-related litigation cases are built and taken forward.
Environmental defenders are better protected through the African Environmental Defenders Initiative.
The accountability and implementation of relevant environmental, land and climate laws by governments and corporations is enforced.
Community groups and/or Community Environmental Legal Officers file complaints regarding legal violations affecting their communities.
The impacts of extractive and infrastructure projects on community partners are stopped or mitigated.
Land acquisitions that have failed to consider community concerns are challenged.
A community solidarity fund and an environmental defenders fund are operationalised across the countries that Natural Justice works in. Standing with Communities
Objectives
Increased legal empowerment of Indigenous peoples and local communities to defend their rights, including women’s rights, to reduce environmental injustices, to participate in decision-making from local to global levels, and to hold governments, corporations and multilateral organisations accountable.
Increased organising and movement building with Indigenous peoples and local communities we work with in Africa, led by women and youth, to ensure a strong collective struggle to address the planetary crisis and for more equality, justice and protection of rights.
Targets
By 2022:
Community members have increased their knowledge on relevant land and environmental laws.
Community members and civil society organisation representatives have increased their capacities on legal empowerment methodologies.
Community participation in environmental decision-making laws and regulations is improved.
The customary governance institutions of communities are strengthened through legal empowerment processes.
Best practices on Community Environmental Legal Officers, Community Protocols and Community Auditing are documented and shared.
Best practices on increasing public participation in environmental decision-making processes are developed and shared.
Community campaigns on environmental justice issues across the continent are strengthened.
Company Information
Contact Name:
Contact Email:
info(at)naturaljustice.org.za
Contact Phone:
Contact Fax:
+27 21 426 1633
Since :
01-01-1970
Company Size:
Address1:
Mercantile Building, 63 Hout Street Cape Town, 8000, South Africa
Address2: