NGOs accuse the oil giant of carrying out its work in Uganda and Tanzania in defiance of human rights and the environment. The decision is expected Tuesday, February 28.
This is a major step in the legal battle against TotalEnergies. A judge from the Paris court is due to rule on Tuesday, February 28, on his very controversial oil project in Uganda and Tanzania. Friends of the Earth, Survival and four Ugandan NGOs sued the company for denounce a project carried out in disregard of human and environmental rights. They accuse the industrial group of not respecting the law on “duty of vigilance”, adopted in 2017.
The hearing was held in December 2022 in front of a crowded room, made up of many actors from the associative world, parliamentarians and journalists. It also attracted MPs behind the law and other who work for its introduction in all member countries of the European Union.
Franceinfo explains this unprecedented and complex legal procedure to you, in this article originally published in December 2022.
1 What the law says ?
The law on the “duty of vigilance” was drawn up after a tragedy. On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza, a multi-storey building that housed dozens of garment factories in Bangladesh, collapsed. More than 1 100 people die. Their deaths shine a light on the appalling working conditions in which millions of people work at the end of the chains of subcontractors. In response, a collective of French unions and NGOs, including Friends of the Earth, are mobilizing to force multinationals to better control these channels.
At the end “of a long-term fight” And “of a legislative journey with many twists and turns”as summed up by the association Les Amis de la Terre, the law on the “duty of vigilance” was enacted on March 27, 2017. This legislation obliges certain multinationals to “preventing serious violations of human rights, the health and safety of people and the environment” with their foreign subcontractors and suppliers. This should be done through a “vigilance plan”which must in particular “understanding a risk map” And “risk assessment and prevention procedures”recalled the president of the court at the hearing.
2 Why its application is still debated?
“Another Battle” opened, as soon as the law came into force, warned Friends of the Earth in 2017. It is “ to apply it, and to obtain from the judges the widest possible interpretation”. Two years later, The world saw that she was doing “little by little emulators” in EU member countries. Today, work on a European directive is in progress, in order to impose the “duty of vigilance” on most companies based or operating in Europe. Manon Aubry, MEP for La France insoumise, who attended the hearing, insists on the debate around the reversal of the burden of proof, which she is seeking for the European directive.
“Is it up to the victims to prove that there has been a violation of human rights and damage to the environment or is it up to the company ?” argued the MEP. The question was invited to the hearing on December 7, with a debate on the application of the law and its measures. The president of the court raised the difficulties linked to this text and asked many questions, wondering about the way of “understand the logic of the legislator” and on the interpretation of the law, when it is “insufficient”according to him.
3 What is Total accused of?
Although it is a summary procedure, that is to say urgently, against the TotalEnergies project in Africa, the case dates back to 2019. At that time, the NGOs summoned TotalEnergies in court Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) for its 2018 vigilance plan, “who did not say a word about human rights violations”, according to Louis Cofflard, the lawyer for Friends of the Earth. Since then, the oil major has reviewed its copy. The current procedure therefore relates to a new vigilance plan, drawn up in 2021. But for Louis Cofflard, “vse which was denounced in 2019 has been maintained over time”. “The 2021 plan is a threat due to the absence of reasonable vigilance measures (…) in the conduct of projects”he argued at the hearing, pointing “a continuum in deficiency”.
“Today the urgency remains, given the climate bomb that such a project represents.”
Louis Cofflard, lawyer for Friends of the Earthbefore the Paris court
Céline Gagey, lawyer for the Survie association, went further by detailing the “pland acquisition process”. Some “118 000 partial expropriations are necessary for this project”, she assured. But according to the lawyer, farmers are sometimes deprived of “work their land” before receiving compensation, too low in his eyes.
“Total does not respect the first fundamental principle which is to pay fair compensation.”
Cécile Gagey, lawyer for the Survie associationbefore the Paris court
And to ask “to the judge in chambers to order Total to take effective vigilance measures”. Concretely, the lawyer asks the company to send “food aid” and pour “compensation to people deprived of the right to use their land, which are still 28 000″. “Very concretely, we see that there are violations, that they are multiplying on the ground and that Total is doing nothing despite the alerts”continues at his side, on the forecourt of the Paris court, Juliette Renaud, Friends of the Earth. The latter adds that the NGO “ asks as a precaution that the judge orders the suspension of the work”. Because in a summary procedure, it cannot go beyond. You have to go through another procedure to stop the project.
4 How is the company defending itself?
At the hearing, the lawyer for TotalEnergies, Antonin Lévy, assured the president of the court that he would have “was able to spend five hours dismantling point by point what the representatives of civil society brought before you” and whom he considers to be “untruths”. But he preferred to focus on “inadmissibility” of the NGOs’ request, in particular because the subpoena was aimed at the 2018 vigilance plan. “This plan was flawed, but three years later it has evolved”assured the lawyer before detailing the changes made.
“The proposed vision is what one might call maximalist”denounced Antonin Lévy. “It is not because the law is short that its perimeter is unlimited, it is not to leave the possibility to civil society to draw its contours”, he pleaded. According to him, the question of compensation does not come under the law on the “duty of vigilance”. The lawyer did not wish to speak at the end of the hearing. For the multinational, the fight will continue in the courts : it confronts the NGO in other disputes.