The EACOP megaprojet trial in Uganda takes place on Wednesday before the Paris court. Major oil will have to respond to other legal actions in the coming months.
by Audrey Garric
Demonstrations in front of the group’s headquarters in the Defense, a disturbed general meeting, civil disobedience operations of scientists or religious: not a week passes without an action against the Totalenergies oil tanker. In parallel, a test of strength is played out before the courts. The multinational is attacked from all shares to denounce its development projects in fossil fuels and its climate commitments considered insufficient.
“NGOs now use litigation as a weapon and explore all legal paths to raise pressure on totalnergies. They target an emblematic enterprise of oil companies which, moreover, has made significant profits since the war in Ukraine” , Analysis Béatrice Parance, professor at Paris-8 University, specializing in environmental law and corporate social responsibility. Especially since the multinational, present in 130 countries and with 100,000 employees, “has the means to act” in the face of the climate crisis, notes M me parance.
In this legal battle, a major hearing is held on Wednesday December 7 before the Paris court. Friends of the Terre France, survival and four Ugandan associations continue the oil giant for its projects in Uganda. As part of the Tilenga project, more than four hundred wells must be drilled in the west of the African country, including a quarter in a protected natural area, in order to produce 190,000 barrels per day. A 1,445 km oil pipeline, baptized Eacop and presented as the longest heated pipeline in the world, must transport this oil to the Tanzanian coast from where it will be exported.
duty of vigilance
“These projects lead to human rights violations. We notably collected a lot of testimonies from people victims of serious food shortages, even famine, denounces Juliette Renaud, campaign manager to the friends of the earth. They have provoked for three years the total or partial expropriation of 118,000 people, who no longer have the right to freely cultivate their land and a large part of which has not yet been compensated “. NGOs also judge, beyond the risks of pollution, that these projects constitute “climatic bombs”: they could issue up to 34 million tonnes of co 2 per year, according to calculations of different scientists , more than the current annual emissions of Uganda and Tanzania together.
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