The two projects involved are the Tilenga Oil Field and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. SARAH MEYSSONNIER / REUTERS
The complaint had been filed by six groups of French and Ugandan activists.
The Paris court on Tuesday dismissed opponents of the controversial TotalEnergies oil megaproject in Uganda and Tanzania, criticizing the NGOs for not having sufficiently explored the path of dialogue with the oil giant before going to court. Long-awaited, the decision of the magistrates constitutes a first interpretation of the “duty of careof multinationals, created in 2017 by a pioneering French law, but deemed incomplete by the magistrates.
This law requires companies to prevent the risks that their activities pose to human rights, health and the environment. It gave rise to a dozen ongoing proceedings by NGOs against French groups, but it had never before been applied to the courts. The Paris court, however, ruled on Tuesday “inadmissiblerequests from Friends of the Earth, Survival and four Ugandan NGOs.
These had sued the oil group in 2019 on the basis of this law by attacking two colossal inseparable sites, which they demanded the suspension: the Tilenga project, a drilling in Uganda encroaching on the Murchison Falls natural park; and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project, a 1,500 km heated pipeline to the Tanzanian coast.
In addition to the danger for areas rich in biodiversity, NGOs have documented human rights violations on the ground: populations expropriated without being compensated in time or sufficiently, or even prevented from cultivating their land before having an alternative. What disputes step by step the oil group. Target of demonstrations, petitions and multiple international protests, up to the Vatican, the megaproject has also become emblematic of the controversial choice of TotalEnergies to continue its investments in fossil fuels despite the climate crisis.
“More than 200 documents of supporting evidence”
But the court, which considered the case in December after three years of procedural battle, believes that the associations’ demands and grievances are now “substantially differentof those contained in the formal notice they had sent to TotalEnergies in June 2019, the starting point of the case. This formal notice, according to the law, opens a period of three months for the company to respond and, if necessary, to comply, before a possible referral to justice.
To justify their rejection, the magistrates defended this stage of the procedure at length, guaranteeing the will of the legislator “to establish a mandatory phase of dialogue and amicable exchange» and to guarantee a «collaborative process for developing the vigilance planbefore any referral to justice. The NGOs, which deny having substantially modified their demands, “have only clarified them and consolidated their arguments with more than 200 documents of supporting evidence“, reacted Juliette Renaud, a leader of Friends of the Earth contacted by AFP.
“We will allow ourselves time to digest the decision» and exchange «to see if it is appropriate to appeal or not“, declared to AFP their lawyer Céline Gagey, welcoming “the very strong citizen mobilization on this project” thanks to their action which “obliged Total to improve the transparency of its procedures and to make some efforts” Nevertheless “still very insufficient“.
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The previous Shell
On the side of TotalEnergies, we are pleased that the court recognized that it had “formally establish a vigilance plan» with elements «sufficiently detailed not to be regarded as summary“. In their deliberations, the magistrates also deplore that the law, for lack of an appropriate decree, only imposes vigilance measures “general and without precise contours“, without “measuring instruments” neither “control organism“, among others.
“This legislation thus assigns monumental goals for the protection of human rights and the environment to certain categories of companies, specifying at least the means that must be implemented to achieve them.“, regret the judges. Their reading will be crucial for the future of the procedures for non-compliance with the “duty of care» already launched against groups such as Casino, Suez, Yves Rocher or even BNP Paribas, implicated for its financial support for fossil fuels… in particular at TotalEnergies.
In another procedure, the French oil major is again assigned on the basis of the “duty of care», this time accused of underestimating the «risks of serious damage to the climate systemof its activities. A hearing is scheduled in Paris on March 22. In the line of sight, the NGOs hope one day to obtain a French equivalent of the condemnation of Shell in 2021 in the Netherlands, when a court condemned the oil giant to accelerate its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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