Application by AI-RISE for leave to be admitted as Amicus Curiae

Policy & Research

IN THE AFRICAN COURT ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES’ RIGHTS, ARUSHA REQUEST FOR ADVISORY OPINION NO. 001 OF 2025

IN THE MATTER OF A REQUEST BY THE PAN AFRICAN LAWYERS UNION (PALU) FOR AN ADVISORY OPINION ON THE OBLIGATIONS OF STATES WITH RESPECT TO THE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISIS

Made under Rule 84(2) of the Rules of the Court

I. PARTICULARS OF THE APPLICANT

1. The Applicant is Artificial Intelligence – Research Innovation and Societal Education (AI-RISE), a civil society research and advocacy initiative working on the human rights, environmental and social implications of artificial intelligence (AI) development in Africa, with a particular focus on the critical minerals supply chains that underpin AI hardware and the proliferation of data centre infrastructure across the continent.

2.Address: 330 Dublin Green Rd, Emerald Hill, Harare, Zimbabwe

3. Telephone: +263 77 256 6664/+27 64 644 3478

4. Email: airise.office@gmail.com

II. INTRODUCTION AND NATURE OF THE APPLICATION

5. This is an application by AI-RISE for leave to be admitted as amicus curiae in the above captioned Request for an Advisory Opinion filed by the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU), on the obligations of African States with respect to the climate change crisis (the “Request”).

6. PALU’s Request invites this Honourable Court to determine, among other things, the nature and scope of the human and peoples’ rights obligations of African States in relation to the climate crisis, including obligations owed in respect of the conduct of third parties such as multinational corporations and non-state actors operating on the continent.

7. AI-RISE seeks leave to file written submissions addressing a specific dimension of the climate and environmental crisis that is mentioned, in passing, in the Request as filed: namely, the human rights implications of the global race for the critical minerals that power artificial intelligence technologies, and of the associated expansion of AI data centre infrastructure across Africa, including their impacts on water resources, energy systems, land, and the rights of affected communities.

8. AI-RISE respectfully submits that this emerging and rapidly intensifying pattern of extraction and infrastructure development associated with the proliferation of AI contributes to climate change and has an impact on the enjoyment of human rights enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

9. AI-RISE accordingly brings this application on the basis of Article 4(1) of the Protocol, and Rule 84(2), and respectfully invites the Court to exercise its discretion to admit AI-RISE as amicus, based on the submissions set out below.

IV. INTEREST AND EXPERTISE OF THE APPLICANT

10. AI-RISE is a research and advocacy initiative dedicated to examining the intersection of artificial intelligence, technology governance, and the lived experience of African communities, with sustained attention to (a) the human rights and environmental consequences of the mining of critical minerals – including cobalt, lithium, copper, graphite, manganese and rare earth elements – that are essential inputs into AI hardware and semiconductor supply chains; and (b) the human rights and environmental consequences of the installation and operation of AI data centres across African countries, including their implications for water security, energy systems, land tenure and community displacement.

11. AI-RISE has no financial or proprietary interest in the outcome of this Request. Its interest is confined to ensuring that this Honourable Court, in delineating the human and peoples’ rights obligations of African States in respect of the climate crisis, has before it a full and accurate account of one of the fastest-growing drivers of environmental and social harm on the continent – namely, the AI-driven critical minerals and data centre economy – and of the lived experiences of the communities affected by it.

12. AI-RISE’s work draws on research, evidence and community testimony concerning, among others, in Zimbabwe, and regionally relating to the hyperscale data centre and cloud infrastructure projects in various African jurisdictions, together with the associated impacts on water pollution and abstraction, electricity demand and load-shedding, land dispossession, and the marginalisation of affected communities from decision-making processes.

13. AI-RISE respectfully submits that its specialised knowledge on the AI-critical minerals nexus is distinct from, and additive to, the submissions already before the Court.

V. RELEVANCE OF THE PROPOSED SUBMISSIONS TO THE QUESTIONS BEFORE THE COURT

14. PALU’s Request squarely raises, among the issues for the Court’s determination, (a) the positive obligations of States to protect vulnerable populations, including indigenous communities and environmental human rights defenders, from the impacts of climate change; (b) the responsibilities of African States in relation to third parties, including multinational corporations and non-state actors, to ensure that international and regional climate and human rights obligations are respected; and (c) the applicable obligations of States in implementing adaptation, resilience, and mitigation measures, including through environmental impact assessment and the duty of care.

15. The Request itself documents, in its account of carbon-market land concessions in Senegal, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, a pattern of large-scale land acquisition by foreign and multinational actors, undertaken without the free, prior and informed consent of affected communities, and with resulting harm to livelihoods, water access and cultural and subsistence practices.

16. AI-RISE respectfully submits that the critical minerals and data centre economy that underpins the global AI industry follows a materially similar pattern, and in several respects intensifies it: extraction of finite mineral resources for export to build AI hardware; construction of energy- and water-intensive data centre facilities, often with limited local consultation, transparency or benefit-sharing; and downstream impacts on the right to a satisfactory environment, the right to health, the right to water, the right to property, and the rights of indigenous and marginalised communities under Articles 4, 14, 16, 21, 22 and 24 of the African Charter.

17. A submission addressing this subject matter will assist the Court in ensuring that any Advisory Opinion rendered in this Request is capable of application not only to the historically dominant drivers of the climate and environmental crisis in Africa – fossil fuel extraction, agriculture, and carbon markets – but also to the rapidly intensifying and comparatively under-scrutinised AI-driven extractive and infrastructural economy, which is likely to be a defining feature of the continent’s development trajectory, and of its human rights landscape, for decades to come.

18. AI-RISE’s proposed submissions will accordingly not duplicate the submissions of PALU or of other parties or amici but will supplement them with a discrete and specialised body of factual material and legal argument, directly relevant to the questions the Court has been asked to determine.

VIII. PRAYER

19. For the reasons set out above, AI-RISE respectfully prays that this Honourable Court be pleased to:

Grant AI-RISE leave to be admitted as amicus curiae in Request for Advisory Opinion No. 001 of 2025;
Admit and consider the accompanying amicus curiae brief filed together with this application;
Grant AI-RISE leave to make brief oral submissions at any hearing convened in respect of the Request, should the Court consider this useful to its deliberations; and
Grant such further or other relief as the Court may deem just.

DRAWN AND FILED BY:

Bridget Chimbga

AI-RISE

330 Dublin Green, Emerald Hill, Harare, Zimbabwe

E-mail: airise.office@gmail.com

TO BE SERVED UPON:

The Registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Conservation Centre Dodoma Road,

P.O. Box 6274, Arusha, United Republic of Tanzania

Email: registry@african-court.org

and

The Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU)