In June 2019, six organisations issued a formal notice to French transnational corporation Total, informing it that its mega oil project in Uganda and Tanzania failed to comply with the company's legal obligations to prevent human rights violations and environmental harm. After an unsatisfactory response to the formal request by Total, a legal action was launched on October 23, 2019. The organisations report that since the lawsuit was filed, there have been increasing attacks in the oil region of Uganda, where Total is one of two operating partners of the Lake Albert Oil Project, together with China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).

Maxwell Atuhura is a human rights activist and member of the NGO Navoda, one of the organisations that filed the lawsuit. He reports that in January, 2020 he had to leave his village and flee to another District. According to the defender, the intimidation is linked to his fight against the Total project.