Digging Her Grave: Gender-Responsive Climate Legislation and Litigation to Address Climate Change Impacts on Maternal Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa

Maternal mortality is an urgent global health crisis, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa,where women face the highest risk of death during pregnancy and birth. Climate changeexacerbates maternal health risks, disproportionately impacting the most vulnerablewomen. Despite regional and international human rights and environmental lawframeworks recognizing the rights to life; health; and a clean, healthy, and sustainableenvironment, these systems often operate in silos and fail to address the intersectionalthreat climate change poses to maternal health. This article proposes a gender-responsiveapproach to climate action and maternal health with three recommendations: (1)establishing a United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe andDignified Maternal Health; (2) leveraging strategic litigation—such as KlimaSeniorinnenv. Switzerland—to hold governments accountable; and (3) funding region-specificclimate studies to empower women and inform legal claims. By developing a legalframework that centers the rights and lived realities of pregnant and recently pregnantwomen in climate-vulnerable regions, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, the internationalcommunity can more effectively uphold human rights and prevent climate-exacerbatedmaternal mortality.