Assessing compliance with the right to a clean and healthy environment in oil exploration: a case study of the Albertine Region in Uganda

Abstract

This dissertation assesses compliance with the right to a clean and healthy environment in oil exploration activities in Uganda's Albertine Region. Despite constitutional and statutory recognition of environmental rights and Uganda's ratification of international environmental instruments, significant gaps persist between legal frameworks and their practical implementation in the petroleum sector. The research examines whether Uganda's legal and institutional framework ensures effective protection of environmental rights in the context of oil exploration. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach combining doctrinal legal analysis of constitutional provisions, legislation, and case law with empirical research through 45 key informant interviews, 6 focus group discussions, and analysis of environmental monitoring data collected between 2023 and 2024. Theoretical frameworks of environmental rights, environmental justice, and sustainability inform the analysis. Key findings reveal that while Uganda possesses a comprehensive legal framework recognizing environmental rights, substantial implementation deficiencies undermine effective protection. Oil exploration activities demonstrate general technical compliance with environmental standards but significant failures in procedural rights including meaningful public participation and access to environmental information. Institutional enforcement mechanisms are weakened by inadequate resources, political interference, fragmented jurisdictional mandates, and limited accountability. Affected communities, particularly women, youth, and indigenous peoples, experience adverse impacts on health, livelihoods, and cultural heritage, with limited access to remedies or compensation. The dissertation concludes that legal reforms alone are insufficient without strengthening institutional capacity, ensuring regulatory independence, enhancing transparency, and empowering affected communities through accessible accountability mechanisms. Recommendations include constitutional amendments explicitly recognizing procedural environmental rights, increased penalties for violations, establishing environmental liability frameworks, restructuring regulatory institutions as independent bodies, and implementing participatory governance mechanisms requiring community consent for projects affecting indigenous lands. These findings contribute to scholarship on environmental governance in African extractive industries and provide evidence-based policy guidance for realizing environmental rights in Uganda's petroleum sector.

Keywords: environmental rights, Oil exploration, Albertine region, Uganda, Extractive industries, Environmental governance, Human rights, Sustainable development, Environmental justice, Community participation