Ugandan farmers sue in UK against TotalEnergies-backed pipeline
A group of Ugandan farmers has launched a case in the UK High Court against the operator of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), seeking to stop the project over alleged environmental rights violations.
The claim was filed on Tuesday by London law firm Leigh Day on behalf of four farmers, with campaign group Avaaz supporting a crowdfunding effort for the case. It asks the court to apply Ugandan constitutional, environmental, and climate law to EACOP Ltd., the British-registered company developing and expected to operate the pipeline.
The farmers argue that the 1,443-km pipeline breaches Ugandan laws protecting citizens’ right to a clean and healthy environment. They are seeking an injunction to prevent it from becoming operational.
“Our land is our life. Without it, we have nowhere to go. Right now, we as communities don’t have access to clean and safe water,” Samuel Abedilembe, a farmer who said he lost 42% of his land to the project, said, according to local outlet Independent Uganda.
EACOP, billed as the world’s longest heated crude oil pipeline, is designed to transport crude from Uganda’s Lake Albert oilfields to the Tanzanian port of Tanga for export. EACOP Ltd. is a “special-purpose” company in which French energy giant TotalEnergies holds a 62% stake, while the Uganda National Oil Company and Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation each hold 15%, and China National Offshore Oil Corporation owns 8%, according to the project’s website.
The company said in a March 2025 financing statement that the pipeline would have capacity to transport 246,000 barrels of crude per day.
As the project’s largest shareholder, TotalEnergies has long faced legal action from activists over alleged climate and human rights violations linked to EACOP, including claims that more than 100,000 people could be displaced if the pipeline is completed.
In November 2023, New York-based climate watchdog GreenFaith published a report describing EACOP’s construction as a “spiritual assault” on local communities. The group accused TotalEnergies of repeatedly failing to respect local customs and traditions regarding graves, after finding that hundreds of burial sites along the project route had been damaged.
Months before the report, five French and Ugandan NGOs sued the oil giant in a Paris civil court after an earlier fast-track case was dismissed. The groups accused TotalEnergies of causing “serious harm” to local communities, particularly to their land and food rights, and of undermining the Paris climate accord through its EACOP and Tilenga oil development projects. TotalEnergies said at the time that action plans had been implemented to protect local communities and biodiversity.
In response to the latest case, the non-profit energy advocacy group African Energy Chamber criticized the move as foreign-backed litigation targeting strategically important African energy projects.
“This is colonialism 2.0... UK courts should not determine Uganda’s energy future. Ugandans should,” AEC Executive Chairman and Centurion Law Group chief NJ Ayuk said in a press release.
