New lawyers network to support environmental defenders – EnviroNews

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A newly inaugurated network of lawyers will provide rapid legal intervention for Nigerians who face reprisals or rights violations as a result of taking a stand against environmental and other forms of human rights violations.

About 35 of the lawyers, drawn from different fields of legal practice and currently spread across four of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, were inaugurated in Benin City on Friday, August 28, 2026, as the Nigerian arm of the Defenders Legal Rapid Response Team.

The initiative is being promoted by the Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN), in collaboration with Chima Williams and Associates Law Firm, with support from the Global Climate Legal Defence (CliDef) an NGO that provides legal representation and protection for environmental rights activists around the world. 

At the inauguration, Clidef founding President, Alfred Brownell, said he was happy to witness the inauguration of the lawyers in Nigeria in view of the significant place Nigeria holds on the continent and also the human rights violations in the country.

Brownell explained that Clidef emboldens climate defenders to challenge the corporate and governmental drivers of climate change, knowing that lawyers will have their backs.

EDEN Executive Director, Comrade Chima Williams, said the network was created to rebuild public confidence in the legal profession and ensure that citizens whose rights are threatened can quickly access lawyers prepared to defend them.

Williams said the team was deliberately constituted rather than being an “all-comers platform,” with members united by a commitment to providing their expertise, time, intellectual resources and professional networks to protect citizens facing reprisals from government agencies, corporations or influential individuals.

He said the network comprises senior lawyers, academics, professors, government lawyers, activist practitioners and retired senior law-enforcement professionals who are also legal practitioners.

Williams expressed sadness about the declining public confidence in lawyers, even as he said that the network’s intervention would be limited to lawful causes that are consistent with the Nigerian Constitution, national laws and applicable international legal instruments to which Nigeria is a party.

He said there is room for collaboration between the network and journalists in exposing issues of public interest and strengthening efforts to promote justice, accountability and the rule of law.