Summary:

• Growing concerns about human rights violations and climate issues in Uganda lead to clashes between the government and climate activists. Despite legal challenges, activists push for renewable energy investments over fossil fuels. A proposed Human Rights Defenders bill aims to protect activists and promote environmental efforts. The writer, Aryampa Brighton, urges Uganda’s government to pass this legislation for a more sustainable future.

Over the past few years, there has been a growing concern, both locally and internationally, about the increased violations of fundamental human rights and freedom. With increasing global climatic chaos, Uganda, like any other country, is facing massive pressure, with emerging climate activists and youth climate groups calling on the government to take climate issues seriously and to act immediately.

With historical oil dreams and heavy investment in extractives, the Ugandan government has found itself on both physical and digital loggerheads with many climate activists demanding just transition efforts and renewable energy investments rather than heavy investments in fossil fuel projects such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project, Tilenga, Kingfisher, and the oil refinery.

Since September 2022, when the European Parliament adopted a joint motion for a resolution on violations of human rights in Uganda and Tanzania linked to investments in fossil fuels projects, the police have had to deal with peaceful protests in front of various locations, including the Parliament of Uganda, European offices, oil companies’ offices, Chinese embassies, and others. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecution and Ugandan courts have found themselves in a position to prosecute and charge climate activists and environmental enthusiasts based on “non-existing laws,” respectively. However, no activist or Human Rights Defender has been convicted. On the contrary, over three similar cases that I am working on have been dismissed for want of prosecution. The state has, on all occasions, failed to adduce evidence to prove the charges brought against the activists.

In addition to the National Climate Change bill passed in 2021 to reduce greenhouse emissions and tackle the climate crisis, Uganda’s parliament must enact legislation pertinent to the work of human rights defenders (HRDs), which is currently very increasingly restrictive. In 2020, Hon. Lyandro Komakech, MP Gulu Municipality, tabled a private members bill, seconded by Hon. Silas Aogon MP Kumi Municipality, known as the Human Rights Defenders bill 202. This is the law that Uganda needs to pass to protect HRDs and their work to tackle the climate crisis and protect Uganda’s natural resources for generations. This bill seeks to provide a framework for the recognition and protection of the work and activities of Human Rights Defenders to guarantee a safe and enabling environment for them to operate freely, realizing that the promotion and protection of human rights is a shared responsibility between the state and non-state actors.

This law is crucial because it recognizes, promotes, and enhances the protection of the work and activities of human rights defenders by imposing specific obligations on the Government to recognize, protect, and promote the work and activities of HRDs. It goes beyond merely bringing action against the violation of another person’s or group’s human rights and freedoms but also actively engages in their recognition, promotion, and protection.

I urge the government, through its parliamentary arm mandated to enact laws under Article 98 of the supreme law, to pass the law to create a Uganda in which individuals, communities, groups, and people are able to exercise their fundamental human rights, determining and pursuing their own priorities about their lives, their futures, their lands, and natural resources.

The writer is Aryampa Brighton a lawyer and Chief Executive Officer, Youth for Green Communities (YGC). ✉️aryampa.brighton@gmail.com ✉️ baryampa@ygcug.org