A coalition of NGOs has sued French oil company Total, alleging that the company has committed human rights and environmental abuses in Uganda. The French lawsuit is the first action filed under the 2017 French Duty of Vigilance law, which imposes a duty on French companies to critically examine their overseas activities and those of their subsidiaries and holds them liable when they fail to do so. It was enacted as a response to a 2012 factory fire in Bangladesh that resulted in numerous casualties.
The French oil giant has backed the Tilenga project, a massive extraction operation that will run through Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park. It is also a major investor in the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline, which runs nearly 900 miles across Tanzania. In all, the lawsuit alleges that Total’s “vigilance plan” required by the Vigilance Law fails to take into account the major environmental destruction and displacement of people that has occurred and will continue to occur due to its development projects. Already, the lawsuit alleges, roughly 5,000 people have been displaced, and the development may affect thousands more in the years to come.
