In 2019, South African communities and NGOs took the government to court over decades of unchecked industrial pollution in South Africa’s “coal country.” They won a landmark ruling recognizing clean air as part of the constitutional right to a healthy environment. Join Stanford experts and two of the case’s key architects – Promise Mabilo, 2026 Bright Award winner and founder of the Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action, and Palesa Madi, deputy director at the Centre for Environmental Rights – for a conversation about how grassroots organizing and legal strategy drove the case, why implementation remains difficult, and what the fight offers environmental justice movements around the world.

Panelists:

• Promise Mabilo, Environmental Activist and 2026 Bright Award Winner
• Palesa Madi, Deputy Director at the Centre for Environmental Rights
• Maxine Burkett, Stanford Professor of Climate, Environment, and Society
• Joel Cabrita, (Moderator) Stanford Professor of History and Director of the Center for African Studies