Ugandan Government Placed on Formal Notice Over Shutdown of Mobile and Broadband Networks

London, January 14, 2025 – The decision by the Government of Uganda to shut down internet access represents a grave breach of international law, Amsterdam & Partners LLP has warned, exposing the country to lawful countermeasures, institutional isolation and serious economic harm. This measure is politically motivated, legally indefensible and designed to distort the electoral environment by suppressing communications, obstructing election monitoring and silencing opposition activity at a decisive moment. It deliberately plunges the population into digital darkness, preventing citizens from communicating with each other and with the outside world, concealing abuses and entrenching impunity. The violations described below carry immediate and painful consequences.

Access to the internet is no longer peripheral to the enjoyment of rights. It is indispensable to democratic governance, public accountability and, in modern societies, basic survival. As recognised by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in its 2022 report on internet shutdowns, such measures have resulted in hospitals being unable to contact doctors in emergency situations and peaceful protesters under violent attack being unable to call for help. In a society such as Uganda’s, where mobile connectivity underpins access to work, healthcare, education, food security and emergency services, the deliberate deprivation of internet access constitutes a direct threat to life and human dignity.

Clear Violations of Binding Treaty Obligations

Breach of the International Telecommunication Union framework

Uganda is a Member State of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and is bound by the ITU Constitution and Convention, the legal foundation of the global telecommunications system. These instruments govern all forms of international telecommunications, including modern mobile networks and fixed broadband infrastructure.

Article 38 provides in unequivocal terms: “Member States shall take such steps as may be necessary to ensure the establishment, under the best technical conditions, of the channels and installations necessary to carry on the rapid and uninterrupted exchange of international telecommunications”.

Mobile data networks and broadband internet connections are now the principal channels through which international telecommunications occur. A government ordered shutdown of mobile internet services, throttling of broadband connections, or disabling of network access points is the antithesis of “rapid and uninterrupted exchange”. By severing mobile and broadband access nationwide, particularly during an electoral period, Uganda has affirmatively interrupted international telecommunications and violated a core treaty obligation owed to the international community of states.

Nothing in the ITU Constitution or Convention authorises the suspension of mobile or broadband networks for domestic political or electoral purposes. Elections do not create an exception. Vague or unsubstantiated invocations of security do not permit derogation. Uganda’s conduct therefore constitutes a clear breach of its binding telecommunications obligations and engages its international responsibility.

Bad faith performance of telecommunications obligations

International law requires treaties to be performed in good faith. Shutting down mobile and broadband internet precisely when voters, candidates, journalists, civil society organisations and election observers rely on those networks to communicate, organise and report demonstrates bad faith performance of Uganda’s telecommunications obligations. The timing, scope and nationwide character of the shutdown confirm that it is not a technical necessity, but the instrumentalisation of telecommunications infrastructure as a political tool to control information and suppress opposition participation.

Parallel violations of international human rights law

Uganda’s conduct simultaneously violates its obligations under international human rights law. Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees:

“Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers… through any other media of his choice”.

The explicit reference to “any other media” plainly encompasses the internet, mobile communications and digital platforms. Mobile phones and broadband internet are the primary media through which Ugandans exercise these rights. Disabling mobile data services and broadband access extinguishes lawful political speech, suppresses independent journalism, disables opposition organising and obstructs domestic and international election monitoring. Such a blanket measure is indiscriminate, unnecessary and grossly disproportionate, and is per se unlawful when imposed during an election.

Where state institutions, security agencies or politically connected actors retain connectivity while the general population is disconnected, the shutdown also operates in a structurally discriminatory manner. Measures that are neutral on their face but discriminatory in effect violate the principle of equality and non discrimination, particularly where the deprivation of access disproportionately burdens individuals and groups defined by political opinion, association and civic activity.

The shutdown further interferes with Uganda’s obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In a digitally dependent society, it is difficult to identify a single economic, social or cultural right that is not profoundly impaired or rendered illusory by a nationwide internet shutdown. The deliberate deprivation of connectivity arbitrarily disrupts access to healthcare and emergency services, interferes with education, deprives individuals of income and excludes communities from participation in cultural and scientific life. Such retrogressive measures cannot be justified on political or electoral grounds.

Consequences: Lawful, Predictable and Painful

Uganda should be under no illusion: violations of this magnitude are not symbolic and they are not cost free. International law does not require other states to continue cooperation as if nothing has happened.

Lawful reciprocal countermeasures

Under the law of state responsibility, states injured by Uganda’s breach of its telecommunications obligations may adopt proportionate countermeasures to induce compliance. These measures are lawful and foreseeable. They include:

• suspension or limitation of bilateral and regional telecommunications cooperation;

• withdrawal of discretionary regulatory, spectrum coordination and technical assistance;

• refusal to facilitate or prioritise Uganda’s participation in cooperative network, roaming and interference management arrangements.

Uganda cannot demand the benefits of international telecommunications cooperation while deliberately disabling its own mobile and broadband networks for political ends.

Loss of international telecommunications cooperation

International telecommunications cooperation is operational, not rhetorical. It includes spectrum coordination for mobile networks, cross border interference resolution, broadband infrastructure planning, emergency communications preparedness, standards development and capacity building.

Uganda has benefited directly from ITU supported technical assistance and policy cooperation for broadband expansion, regulatory development and digital connectivity initiatives. That cooperation is discretionary and trust based. A government that weaponises mobile and broadband access to manipulate elections signals that it is an unreliable and bad faith participant. The predictable result is de prioritisation, disengagement and isolation within technical fora.

The harm will be concrete:

• degraded network quality and resilience;

• delayed deployment of new mobile and broadband technologies;

• higher operating costs for telecommunications providers;

• reduced access to technical expertise and capacity building.

Economic and investment damage

Mobile and broadband shutdowns are treated globally as indicators of regulatory arbitrariness and political risk. Uganda’s blackout will be reflected immediately in investor risk assessments, insurance premiums and financing terms, particularly in telecommunications, mobile money, financial services, digital trade and logistics.

The result will be higher costs of capital, deterred investment, suppressed economic activity and direct harm to Ugandan businesses and consumers. These costs fall squarely on Uganda’s economy and population.

Aid conditionality and political isolation

Election period shutdowns of mobile and broadband access increasingly trigger donor scrutiny and conditionality. Development partners do not support digital inclusion while governments deliberately disable digital access. Uganda’s actions will prompt reassessment of development assistance, election support and security cooperation tied to governance and rule of law benchmarks.

Escalated legal exposure

Uganda’s breach of its ITU obligations will be cited as evidence of bad faith and disproportionality in proceedings before regional and international human rights bodies. The shutdown creates a contemporaneous record that will amplify findings of repression, electoral interference and systemic abuse. When assessed cumulatively and contextually, the severity, scale and recurrence of election period shutdowns may contribute to findings of persecution and the intentional deprivation of fundamental rights under international law.

Notice of Coordinated Action

If the Government of Uganda does not immediately restore full mobile and broadband internet access, and publicly commit to non interference with telecommunications during the electoral process, we will coordinate with states, regulators and institutions to facilitate the lawful countermeasures described above. This will include joint diplomatic action, coordinated disengagement from discretionary telecommunications cooperation and the systematic use of Uganda’s treaty breaches in legal, regulatory and political proceedings. Uganda’s government can comply with its binding international obligations — or it can accept the consequences of violating them. Those consequences will be real, coordinated and sustained.

Amsterdam & Partners LLP is an international law firm specialised in political advocacy and human rights, based in London and Washington, DC, and currently acting as international counsel to Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine. For more information about the firm, please visit www.amsterdamandpartners.com. Media enquiries may be directed to contact@amsterdamandpartners.com.

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