A French civil court on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit brought by environmental campaigners against the French energy giant TotalEnergies over its oil projects in Uganda and Tanzania.
Under the case filed in 2019, six French and Ugandan activist groups - including Friends of the Earth France - had accused the company of not doing its utmost to protect people and the environment from the Tilenga oil development and the 3.5 billion euro East African Crude Oil Pipeline.
The campaigners wanted the court to order TotalEnergies to stop the east African projects under France's duty of vigilance law.
The 2017 statute requires companies to identify human rights and environmental risks in their global operations and supply chains, and to take measures to prevent them.
Dismissing the action, judges in the civil court panel said that only a judge examining the case more in depth could assess whether there was enough substance in the accusations against TotalEnergies. A review of operations around the pipeline could then take place, they added.
Procedures
Welcoming the ruling, TotalEnergies said: "The court has found we formally established a vigilance plan comprising the five items required by the duty of vigilance law, in sufficient detail so as not to be considered purely summary."
Friends of the Earth France said they reserved their right to further legal action.
Activists did, however, enjoy a significant breakthrough.
The court in its ruling - the first based on the 2017 law - said nothing prevented France from enforcing laws that govern the overseas activities of companies present in France.
TotalEnergies had argued a French court did not have jurisdiction over the overseas activities of its subsidiary TotalEnergies EP Uganda.
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Implications
The case is expected to have wider ramifications.
Other French multinationals, including nuclear giant EDF, water supplier Suez, bank BNP Paribas and the agri-food firm Danone have been taken to court under the 2017 duty of vigilance law.
Those cases centre on claims as diverse as plastics pollution, working conditions in France and overseas, loans to companies contributing to deforestation, and land clashes with indigenous populations during the construction of a project.
"What we're actually seeing is an emergence of an entirely new field of litigation," said Carroll Muffett, head of the Center for International Environmental Law in Washington
"What binds these cases is that there are an array of legal duties that are coming into play ... as the universe of potential plaintiffs harmed by corporate conduct is becoming ever broader," he said.
