Ghana Parliamentary Recommendation: ecocide law

Summary

In December 2025, Ghana’s Constitution Review Committee submitted its recommendations from a state-mandated constitutional review process commissioned to examine Ghana’s 1992 Constitution. The Committee’s task was to identify and propose constitutional solutions to problems afflicting Ghana’s democracy, governance, or development. The Report, “Transforming Ghana: From Electoral Democracy to Developmental Democracy,” proposed implementing a national crime of ecocide in Ghana. If the recommendation on ecocide were to be adopted, Ghana would become the first African nation to establish ecocide as a domestic crime.

Review Process
The report followed extensive nationwide consultations and dialogue. The Committee organized 10 thematic stakeholder engagements that brought together over 500 experts and practitioners to deliberate on specific constitutional themes and clusters, including: Lands and Natural Resources (38 participants); Decentralization and Local Governance & Chieftaincy (44 participants); Rights, Gender, Youth, and Inclusion (46 participants); and more. The Committee held 17 stakeholder engagements with groups representing a diverse cross-section of Ghanaian society. In total, these engagements reached over 21,500 people, which includes 21,000 young people, “demonstrating the Committee’s commitment to engaging with younger generations who represent Ghana’s democratic future.” Additionally, the Committee received 785 written submissions from the public.

Recommendations
“In order to express society’s revulsion and opprobrium to illegal mining in Ghana, the Committee will be remiss in its duty of constitutional review if it does not recommend the creation of an offence of ecocide with very stiff and punitive sanctions. This further gives true expression to the right to a clean environment.” (Chapter III, page 57). It also proposed “The incorporation of a new article or clause setting out the basic principles governing natural resources which shall guide the interpretation and application of all laws, contracts, policies, and administrative actions relating to natural resources. These principles shall include:

i. collective ownership and public trusteeship;
ii. fiduciary responsibility
iii. intergenerational equity;
iv. sustainability and environmental stewardship;
v. equitable and reasonable utilisation
vi. precautionary principle
vii. public benefit and national development;
viii. transparency and accountability;
ix. democratic and parliamentary oversight;
x. meaningful community participation realised through access to information, Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and equitable benefit-sharing
xi. obligation to restore and rehabilitation
xii. climate compatibility; and
xiii. justiciability and enforceability of the public trust.”

Legislative Proposal
Following the recommendations from Ghana’s Constitutional Review Committee, on 9 March 2026, the Minority Chief Whip in Parliament, Frank Annoh-Dompreh urged Parliament to introduce a national ecocide law. He cited reports that up to 60% of Ghana’s water bodies have been affected by illegal and unregulated gold mining, and that cases like the Pra River and Ankobra River, where severe degradation has been caused, demonstrate the urgent need to criminalize large-scale environmental destruction. The statement was supported by fellow MPs Charles Akwasi Agbeve, Dr Mahama Tiah Abdul-Kabiru, Jerry Ahmed Shaib, and Dominic Napare.

I commend the government for proposing the creation of a national crime of Ecocide as part of the proposals made by the Constitutional Review Committee. And I urge a swift progression in the creation of national ecocide legislation to protect our economy now and into the future. (Address to Parliament by MP Annoh-Dompreh)

The proposal aligns with broader regional and international momentum. African environment ministers have formally agreed to prioritize ecocide in the continent’s environmental agenda for the 2025–2027 biennium, which marked the first time ecocide was explicitly recognized as a strategic continental priority by a UN-affiliated forum.

Ecological Context
Since the early 2000s, and intensifying after 2010, mining activities have introduced mercury and other toxic chemicals into waterways while mechanized dredging and deforestation have caused extreme sedimentation. By the late 2010s and early 2020s, large stretches of these rivers had become unsafe for drinking and difficult to treat, with serious impacts on aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity. The environmental and social consequences have been extensive and long-term. Mercury contamination has entered fish populations and drinking water sources, posing health risks to communities, while sedimentation has reduced oxygen levels and led to fish die-offs. At the same time, deforestation along riverbanks has increased erosion and flooding risks, and polluted soils have reduced agricultural productivity. These combined impacts have threatened food security, public health, and local economies, illustrating damage that is both widespread and potentially irreversible.

In response, authorities have implemented bans on small-scale mining and enforcement operations, but these efforts have been inconsistent and insufficient to reverse the damage. Increasingly, legal scholars and environmental advocates have framed the destruction of these river systems as ecocide, such as on 3 October 2025 when a coalition of Ghanaian civil society organizations from the Ghana Coalition Against Galamsey submitted a letter to President John Dramani Mahama to take immediate action against what they describe as an ongoing “ecocide” driven by galamsey in the country.