Click to expand Image Two people working on a sunken boat in the Langue de Barbarie, Saint-Louis, Senegal, March 7, 2023. © 2023 Raquel Maria Carbonell Pagola/LightRocket via Getty Images The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is poised to issue an advisory opinion on states’ human rights obligations in the climate crisis. This is an opportunity to strengthen protections for people displaced by climate change and to call for a rights-respecting approach. A petition filed in May 2025 by the Pan African Lawyers Union and the African Climate Platform asked the court to interpret states’ obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in light of climate change. This comes amid a surge in such legal clarifications by international and regional tribunals. Human Rights Watch Submission for the African Court Advisory Opinion on State Obligations Related to the Climate Crisis August 18, 2025 “Waiting for God” Flood Displacement and Planned Relocation of Fisherfolk in Saint-Louis, Senegal Download the full report in English Download the Summary & Recommendations in Wolof Annex 1a: Human Rights Watch Letter to the World Bank Annex 1b: World Bank Response to Human Rights Watch Annex 2a: Human Rights Watch Letter to the Municipal Development Agency of Senegal Annex 2b: Municipal Development Agency of Senegal Response to Human Rights Watch Annex 3: Human Rights Watch Letter to the Ministry of the Environment of Senegal Annex 4: Human Rights Watch Letter to the Mayor of Saint-Louis, Senegal Annex 5: Human Rights Watch Letter to the Prefect of Saint-Louis, Senegal Annex 6: Human Rights Watch Letter to the Governor of Saint-Louis, Senegal Annex 7: Human Rights Watch Letter to the Saint-Louis Municipal Development Agency Annex 8: Human Rights Watch Letter to the Ministry of Localities and Territorial Management of Senegal Annex 9: Human Rights Watch Letter to the Regional Environmental Ministry of Saint-Louis Human Rights Watch submitted an amicus brief to the court drawing on our August 2025 report, “‘Waiting for God’: Flood Displacement and Planned Relocation of Fisherfolk in Saint-Louis, Senegal.” Coastal flooding in 2015 and 2016 displaced fishing families from the Langue de Barbarie peninsula in Saint-Louis to Khar Yalla, a site that government and World Bank officials acknowledge is unsuitable for permanent habitation. We found that nearly a decade after the floods, families experienced severe overcrowding, most houses lacked electricity, there was no waste collection, and seasonal flooding sent septic water into homes. These families are excluded from a World Bank-funded planned relocation of others displaced by coastal floods, and are desperate for the kind of protections this advisory opinion could make clear are state obligations.Based on data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, the number of people internally displaced by floods and other natural hazards has risen nearly sixfold across African continent in the last 15 years, to 6.3 million in 2023. Planned relocations are already happening across Africa with 39 cases identified in a global mapping. The 2025 decisions by the International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights cemented the notion that climate policy must respect human rights, be guided by the best available science, and reflect a state’s highest level of ambition. But no international tribunal has comprehensively clarified how national policies can protect the rights of climate displaced communities awaiting planned relocations.The court should address this critical gap for communities like Khar Yalla by clarifying that states parties to the African Charter have binding obligations to protect people displaced by climate change including through rights-respecting planned relocation as a last resort.