In an underreported legal action in August, the oil and gas giant Shell lost a significant court case in South Africa, which put an end to its long-running battle to drill off the country’s Wild Coast.
Though the case, which was brought by a coalition of coastal communities and environmental justice organisations, was against the government’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), Shell played a full part in the hearings and was the ultimate loser.
This is the story. In 2014 the DMRE granted a company called Impact Africa (which was later joined by Shell) an exploration license to search for oil and gas off the Eastern Cape’s Wild Coast, an ecologically rich coastline where communities have deep cultural and livelihood ties to the sea.
When, in 2021, with license from the DMRE, Shell moved to conduct seismic surveys, which use underwater sound blasts to map rock formations, six local communities sued, arguing that they had not been consulted.
The local high court agreed and set the exploration rights aside. Shell then appealed to the South African Supreme Court who gave Shell a reprieve by granting them the right to a renewed application with the chance to consult second time round.
The appellants then went one higher, to the South African Constitutional Court, which on 14th August closed down that lifeline, holding that corporate financial considerations cannot override a constitutional violation after the fact. In other words, if Shell did not consult the first time round, they should not have a second chance.
Why is this case important beyond the Wild Coast?
It’s the first climate case ever to reach South Africa’s Constitutional Court. It is also the first binding African court judgment to formally cite the International Court of Justice July 2025 advisory opinion on the obligations of states to take account of the environmental foundation of human rights.
The court, in fact, explicitly ruled that failing to weigh the impacts of climate change on communities in how the exploration right was granted was itself legally defective.
Second, the ruling creates a significant precedent by saying that a procedural injustice (in allowing an oil and gas project) can’t be retroactively ‘fixed’ once a court finds it unlawful. In so doing this substantially raised the stakes for any government department approving fossil fuel projects elsewhere.
Third, it elevates climate change from a side issue to a core legal consideration. The court ruled that decisions affecting the climate must be informed by scientific knowledge, international commitments, and the foreseeable impact of emissions on future generations.
It thereby explicitly rejected the idea that environmental and cultural harm are just competing interests to be weighed against economic development.
That reframing (rights before profits, not rights vs. profits) is now being watched for how courts might treat fossil fuel licensing not just in Africa but worldwide.
This is why it is such a big win.
Joe Human
sustainablekeswick@gmail.com
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