Tamunobelema Adegbite

Topic

Beyond Sustainable Development: Reclaiming the Environment–Economy Relationship in Nigeria’s Legal Order

Faculty of Law

Date & location

• Tuesday, June 23, 2026
• 8:00 A.M.
• Virtual Defence

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Supriya Routh, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Prof. Jeremy Webber, Faculty of Law, UVic (Member)
• Dr. Katya Rhodes, School of Public Administration, UVic (Outside Member)

External Examiner

• Prof. Tonia Novitz, Professor of Labour Law, University of Bristol Law School

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Stacey Fitzsimmons, Gustavson School of Business, UVic

Abstract

Environmental degradation persists in Nigeria despite decades of environmental legislation, institutional reform, and sustainability discourse. This thesis argues that this persistence cannot be explained by regulatory weakness or enforcement failure alone. Rather, it reflects a deeper structural problem in how Nigeria’s legal order has organized the relationship between environment and economy. Law has consistently prioritized economic development while treating environmental protection as secondary and instrumental, resulting in a framework that fails to secure ecological integrity as a legal condition.

The thesis traces the historical foundations of this ordering from precolonial ecological practices through colonial extractive legal regimes and post-independence developmental governance. It shows how anthropocentrism became embedded in Nigeria’s environmental law, and distinguishes between responsibility-oriented anthropocentrism and exploitative forms that authorize ecological degradation. While sustainable development seeks to reconcile growth and environmental protection, this thesis argues that it remains fundamentally development-centered and presupposes ecological sustainability rather than independently establishing it.

The thesis advances socio-ecological justice as a legal-ordering framework for reordering the environment–economy relationship. Socio-ecological justice focuses on the justice of legal ordering itself, that is, how law positions development and economic activity in relation to the environment, asking whether law secures the ecological conditions necessary for the survival and flourishing of interdependent human and ecological systems.