Climate Litigation Lab

The 2025 Climate Litigation Lab, hosted by Surge Africa and partners, addressed the systemic use of SLAPP suits by corporations and governments to intimidate climate activists in Africa. The event resulted in the launch of an Africa-specific SLAPP Toolkit and the development of strategies for legal advocacy, strategic communications, and regional solidarity to protect environmental defenders.

• Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) are systematically weaponized by multinational corporations and governments to intimidate, silence, and financially exhaust environmental defenders, journalists, and lawyers across Africa.
• The Lab launched a comprehensive SLAPP Toolkit designed for African jurisdictions to help defenders identify and resist legal repression through procedural templates, checklists, and guidance on safety and media engagement.
• In Kenya, the Carbon Market Act (2025) is cited as a legal mechanism that undermines land rights by allowing county governors to allocate communal land for carbon offset projects without community consent.
• Environmental defenders in Uganda have faced criminalization and detention for protesting the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project, illustrating the manipulation of legal systems to protect fossil fuel interests.
• Greenpeace has faced an unprecedented scale of global SLAPP suits from companies including Shell, TotalEnergies, Perenco, and Energy Transfer, notably a $660 million suit by Energy Transfer in the United States.
• Legal landscapes in South Africa and Kenya show a gap between strong constitutional protections for expression and inconsistent judicial enforcement, leaving activists vulnerable to sophisticated suits disguised as defamation or economic sabotage.
• Effective resistance to SLAPPs requires a shift from purely legal defenses to strategic communications that target a corporation's operating, social, commercial, and political licenses.
• The report recommends the adoption of model anti-SLAPP legislation in African countries to provide grounds for early dismissal of abusive suits and protect the right to protest.

APA

Natural Justice (2025). Climate Litigation Lab. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Climate-Litigation-Lab-CLL-REPORT-Surge-Africa-_-HQ.pdf

Chicago

Natural Justice. Climate Litigation Lab. 2025. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Climate-Litigation-Lab-CLL-REPORT-Surge-Africa-_-HQ.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Natural Justice |title=Climate Litigation Lab |date=16 May 2025 |url=https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Climate-Litigation-Lab-CLL-REPORT-Surge-Africa-_-HQ.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{naturaljustice2025climate, author = {{Natural Justice}}, title = {{Climate Litigation Lab}}, institution = {Natural Justice}, year = {2025}, month = may, url = {https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Climate-Litigation-Lab-CLL-REPORT-Surge-Africa-_-HQ.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }