Mozambique: NGO files OECD complaint targeting five Japanese financial institutions over human rights allegations at Mozambique LNG project

“[Press Release] Japanese Banks Face OECD Complaint Over Mozambique LNG Human Rights Allegations” 15 June 2026

Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC) has filed a formal complaint with Japan’s National Contact Point (NCP) under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, alleging that major Japanese financial institutions have failed to address severe human rights risks linked to the Mozambique LNG project. 

The complaint targets five Japanese financial institutions, namely Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Mizuho Bank, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI), for their roles in financing and insuring the project…

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The project, led by TotalEnergies, has been linked to serious human rights abuses in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique. These include large-scale violence affecting civilians, allegations of unlawful detention and abuse at the project site, and unresolved grievances from communities displaced without adequate compensation. [5] …

SFOC argues that despite mounting evidence of escalating conflict and human rights harms, the financial institutions continued to support the project without adequate and independently carried out human rights due diligence or efforts to prevent or mitigate harm. 

The filing calls on the institutions to urgently: 

• Support and conduct independent investigations into alleged human rights abuses connected to the Mozambique LNG project; and 
• Ensure effective remedy for affected communities, including those displaced or harmed by project-related activities 

While the complaint focuses on human rights, it also raises concerns about the project’s substantial greenhouse gas emissions, which are consistent with neither global nor Japan’s climate goals. 

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Kete Fumo, National Coordinator of the Gas Campaign at Justiça Ambiental (JA!), said, “The Mozambique LNG project has already affected thousands of lives through land dispossession, restricted access to livelihoods, and a long and complex resettlement process in an area affected by conflict, where multiple allegations of human rights violations have been well documented…” 

Kaoru Koide, a legal fellow at Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC), said, “In connection with the gas field development in Mozambique, serious human rights violations have come to light – ranging from harm to local residents’ daily lives and the places where they earn their livelihoods, to, ultimately, the loss of life through violence… Although Mozambique lies physically far from Japan, part of the LNG produced from that gas field is slated to be shipped to and consumed in Japan… This case poses a fundamental question: is it acceptable for the lives of local people and the environment to be sacrificed for the sake of energy consumption in Japan?  

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