The Pearl in Peril: Making Ecocide a Crime in Uganda
This guest blog is authored by Ninsiima Louis Kandahura, a climate advocate and storyteller, and Calvin Stewart Obita, a human rights defender.
Uganda, often called the “Pearl of Africa,” is home to lush forests, fertile soils, and vast wetlands. Yet these treasures are disappearing at an alarming rate. Environmental destruction is no longer just a threat to biodiversity, it is a crisis that undermines livelihoods, cultures, and rights. Against this backdrop, one concept demands urgent attention: ecocide.
Ecocide in Context
The idea of ecocide, the killing of our ecosystems, first gained global recognition during the Vietnam War, when the use of Agent Orange decimated forests and poisoned generations. Legal scholars such as Richard Falk and Lynn Berat later expanded the idea, linking ecocide to the destruction of entire species or ecosystems. In 2021, an independent panel of experts convened by Stop Ecocide Foundation proposed a definition: unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment.
Though ecocide is not yet recognised by the International Criminal Court, it has gained momentum worldwide. Thirteen countries already criminalise it nationally, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights enshrines a collective right to a satisfactory environment.
Uganda’s Legal Landscape
Uganda’s Constitution explicitly guarantees the right to a clean and healthy environment under Article 39. Courts have enforced this right in landmark cases. In Greenwatch v Attorney General & NEMA (2002), the High Court affirmed that civil society groups could litigate environmental harms even without direct personal injury. Similarly, in ACODE v Attorney General & NEMA (2004), the Court stressed the State’s duty to prevent environmental degradation.
Yet the remedies remain largely civil or administrative. They fall short when faced with irreversible destruction, the kind that wipes out entire wetlands or forests. Civil damages cannot restore a vanished ecosystem. Criminal accountability is the missing piece.
The case of Tsama William & Others v Attorney General illustrates this gap. Communities in Bududa, long plagued by deadly landslides, sued the State for failing to put effective protections in place. The court has yet to deliver judgment, but the case highlights the limits of Uganda’s current framework: foreseeable environmental disasters devastate communities, yet the law struggles to hold anyone truly accountable.
Giraffe in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. Credit: Ivan Sabayuki/ Unsplash.
Ecocide as a Human Rights Issue
The link between ecocide and human rights is clear. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights made this connection powerfully in SERAC v Nigeria, where it held the Nigerian government responsible for failing to protect the Ogoni people from severe environmental harm caused by oil exploitation. The Commission affirmed that environmental rights are inseparable from rights to life, health, and dignity.
Uganda has similar obligations under treaties like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Both instruments have been interpreted to require protection against environmental degradation. For indigenous peoples such as the Batwa, whose cultural and physical survival depends on forest ecosystems, deforestation amounts to cultural extinction.
Why Uganda Needs Ecocide Law
Uganda’s Constitution and statutes recognise environmental rights, but without ecocide legislation, enforcement remains weak. Criminalising ecocide would align national law with international human rights standards, ensuring that large-scale environmental destruction is met with real accountability.
Such a law would not only punish but also deter. It would signal that severe, widespread, or long-term damage to Uganda’s ecosystems is not just an unfortunate by-product of development but a crime against people, culture, and future generations.
Conclusion
Ecocide is not a distant legal theory. It is a lived reality for Ugandan communities facing floods, landslides, and ecological collapse. Our courts have recognised the right to a healthy environment, but rights without enforcement are fragile. By criminalising ecocide, Uganda would give real meaning to its constitutional promises and join the growing international movement to defend the Earth as our shared home.
The time to act is now, before the “Pearl of Africa” is irreparably lost.