The Appeals Division of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) on Wednesday dismissed one of the last cases standing against the construction and development of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop), leaving the TotalEnergies-led multibillion-dollar project in the all-clear for completion and commissioning next year.

The panel of five judges upheld a decision made by the EACJ’s First Instance Division which, in November 2023, dismissed a case filed in 2020 by four nongovernmental organisations that are among environmentalists groups that have waged a campaign against the $5 billion infrastructure project.

The court observed that the First Instance Division did not err in ruling that the case by the NGOs was filed out of time and noted that the EACJ does not have jurisdiction to hear the main case.“We have carefully considered the pleadings of the parties ... [and] from the chronology of events [relating to the signing of the Eacop agreements], any sane person would adduce that the reference [case filed by the NGOs] ... runs afoul of the time limitation provision [in] the EAC Treaty. The case is hereby dismissed,” said Justice Nestor Kayobera, President of the Appellate Division, who read the ruling.

In November 2020, the activist groups sued the governments of Uganda and Tanzania, as well as to the Secretary General of the East African Community (EAC) seeking to stop the 1,443km pipeline that will transport oil from Hoima, in western Uganda oilfields to Indian Ocean port of Tanga in Tanzania.

The litigants cited human rights, environmental, climate impacts and risks associated with the construction of what is set to become the world’s longest heated pipeline when completed, transporting 230,000 barrels of oil per day at peak production of about eight years of Uganda’s 25-year oil production period.

The activists include Africa Institute for Energy Governance (Afiego) and Center for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT) both from Uganda, Natural Justice (NJ) from Kenya, and Centre for Strategic Litigation (CSL) from Tanzania.

Legal analysts say that by upholding the ruling of the First Instance Division, the appellate court dismissed the case by the lawsuit on a technicality in EAC laws which provides that cases filed outside a 60-day time limit are not heard by the court.

But, according to Afiego, this technicality was occasioned by the fact that key agreements related to the Eacop were made public only years after they were signed. The case by the activists was based on Eacop-related agreements such as the Inter-Governmental Agreement and Host Government Agreement.“The judges failed to consider when communities and CSOs actually became aware of the project’s impacts and existence of the Eacop agreements, effectively shutting the door on the case without examining any of the evidence,” Afiego said in a statement.

Elizabeth Kariuki, Nairobi Hub Director at NJ – one of the litigants – noted that the ruling is devastating for the very people whose lives have been upended by the project through displacement and communities’ ecosystems that have disappeared.“Today, the court has closed its doors to them. But we will not give up. We will continue to fight alongside communities to ensure that their suffering is not ignored,” she said.

The other legal hurdle is a case still pending, filed in Paris in June 2023 against the pipeline and its associated upstream project Tilenga that is operated by French major TotalEnergies.

In the Paris case, 26 project affected individuals and environmental groups brought legal action against TotalEnergies seeking to hold the French energy giant liable and to obtain compensation for human rights violations caused by its Tilenga and Eacop oil projects in Uganda.

Construction of the pipeline began in early 2003 with pre-construction activities, with the project currently standing at 75 percent completion in both Uganda and Tanzania, according to the Petroleum Authority of Uganda.

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