Section 3: Right to decent environment

(1) Every person in Uganda has a right to a clean and healthy environment in accordance with the Constitution and the principles of sustainable development. (2) Every person has a duty to create, maintain and enhance the environment, including the duty to prevent pollution. (3) A person may, where the right referred to in subsection (1) is threatened as a result of an act or omission by any person which has or is likely to cause harm to human health or the environment or in enforcement of the duty referred to in subsection (2), file a civil suit against the person whose act or omission has or is likely to cause harm to human health or the environment. (4) A person proceeding under subsection (3) may file a civil suit, notwithstanding that the person cannot prove that the act or omission of another person has caused or is likely to cause personal harm or injury. (5) The civil suit referred to in subsection (3) may be to require court- (a) to prevent, stop or discontinue any act or omission deleterious to human health or the environment; (b) to require that an activity likely to have significant adverse impacts on human health or the environment be subjected to an environmental and social impact or risk assessment; (c) to require that any ongoing activity that is likely to impact human health or the environment be subjected to an environmental audit in accordance with this Act; (d) to require that any ongoing activity be subjected to environmental monitoring in accordance with this Act; (e) to compel any ministry, department, agency or local government to take measures to prevent or to discontinue any act or omission deleterious to human health or the environment; (f) to require any person to take any other measures to ensure that human health or the environment do not suffer any significant harm or damage; (g) to compel the persons responsible for the environmental degradation to restore the degraded environment as far as practicable to its immediate condition prior to the damage; (h) to provide compensation for any victim of pollution and the cost of beneficial uses lost as a result of an act of pollution; or (i) to provide compensation for other losses that are connected with or incidental to this subsection.