African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (2017). African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights v. Republic of Kenya. Application No. 006/2012. Judgment on the merits, 26 May 2017. Arusha.
The Court found that Kenya violated Articles 1, 2, 8, 14, 17(2) and (3), 21 and 22 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights through its treatment of the Ogiek, including evictions from their ancestral land in the Mau Forest, one of Kenya’s main water towers. Kenya justified the evictions as forest protection. The Court found that Kenya had not shown the Ogiek were responsible for the forest’s degradation, and stated that it “does not accept that the eviction of the Ogiek can be justified with reference to the need to protect the forest.” The wiki cites the judgment as the official record of coercive exclusion carried out in the name of a catchment, and of a conservation rationale tested and rejected by a court.