A critical legal case filed by four East African NGOs against a controversial oil pipeline is facing yet another delay, but the NGOs say they remain hopeful. “What we need is for the court to hear the case on its merit, and we believe we have presented good evidence,” Dickens Kamugisha, CEO of the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), told Mongabay. In November 2020, AFIEGO and the Center for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT), both from Uganda, Natural Justice (Kenya), and the Centre for Strategic Litigation (Tanzania) filed a case with the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) to halt construction of the East African crude oil pipeline. Known as EACOP, the $5 billion project is led by French oil giant TotalEnergies and involves state-owned companies from China, Uganda and Tanzania. The NGOs allege that the project violates Ugandan, Tanzanian and regional laws protecting human rights and the environment, as well as breaches the two countries’ climate commitments. Kamugisha said they filed the case with the EACJ because the project’s impacts were cutting across the borders of Uganda and Tanzania: communities have been displaced without adequate compensation or sufficient public participation, and the pipeline threatens critical ecosystems like Lake Victoria. However, the plaintiffs faced a setback at the first hearing in November 2023. Tanzania and Uganda argued the NGOs should have filed their complaint within 60 days of the signing of agreements in 2017, not three years later. The court agreed that the time for objections had lapsed…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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