Kenyan nuclear project faces international legal challenge over security risks

A Kenyan lawyer has filed a case at the East African Court of Justice challenging plans for a 2,000-to-5,000-megawatt nuclear plant near Lake Victoria's eastern shore, arguing the government ignored its own 2023 assessment warning that volcanic hazards make the site unsuitable for nuclear safety. The lawyer, Dickens Ochieng, is also demanding a transboundary impact assessment, since roughly 40 million people across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania depend on the lake.

Ochieng's petition also raises security concerns, citing attacks on nuclear facilities abroad and Al-Shabaab's activity within Kenya, and accuses the government of failing to properly consult local communities. The Kenyan government has 45 days to respond; neither the Lake Victoria Basin Commission nor Kenya's attorney general responded to requests for comment.

Lake Victoria, home to hundreds of endemic species of which about 76% are already threatened with extinction, drains north into the Nile system, meaning pollution risk theoretically extends to all eleven Nile Basin countries.

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