East Africa

The article analyses the High Court’s decision in Wathome & 14 others v Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service & another; Greenpeace Environmental Kenya & 2 others (Interested Parties) [2025] KEHC 18166 (KLR) (the Wathome Decision), focusing on the arguments advanced and the Court’s response to the tension between plant variety protection and farmers’ rights. Finally, it reflects on what a more balanced legal and policy framework might entail, while also engaging with emerging challenges related to the place of genetically modified crops and the growing reliance on toxic agrochemical inputs in food production.

In late November 2025, the Machakos High Court in Kenya issued an unprecedented judgment that was noteworthy. The judgment was not limited to legal correction; it struck down the key provisions of the Seed and Plant Varieties Act (SPVA). It was a strong assertion of humanity’s dignity, culture, and the right to eco-justice. The Court aligned Kenyan law with constitutional values and international human rights obligations by declaring unconstitutional the laws that criminalized the saving, sharing, and sale of farm-saved and Indigenous seeds. The UN human rights experts have recognised this judgement as a landmark for the rights of peasants and food security, and declare it a strong rebuttal against the international trade of seeds through restrictive IP regimes.

The 2025 landmark judgment by the High Court of Kenya in the case of Samuel Wathome and 14 others v Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service and another (Samuel Wathome case) fundamentally reaffirmed a broad conceptualization of the previously diminished farmers’ rights to save, exchange, and sell seeds. There had previously been a discernible trend, since the year 2012, of undermining the farmers’ rights through domestic legislation and the ratification of the 1991 International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) Treaty in 2016. Until the 2025 High Court Judgment, the ratification of UPOV 1991 and consecutive amendments to the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act (SPVA) and its implementation Regulations had resulted in an extremely liberal conceptualization of plant breeder’s rights (PBRs) to an extent that they were patent like. The 2022 amendments to the SPVA and implementing Regulations particularly proceeded to the extent of criminalizing the exchange of ‘unregistered’, ‘uncertified’ and ‘unindexed’ indigenous seeds that have, historically, been part of the African commons.

The News and Events published every week include conferences, major developments in the field of International Economic Law in Africa at the national, sub-regional and regional levels as well as relevant case law.

The African Sovereign Debt Justice Network brings to you an update of African sovereign debt news and updates on events and happenings on and about Africa that reveal how sovereign debt issues are engaged by the various stakeholders.

The African Sovereign Debt Justice Network brings to you an update of African sovereign debt news and updates on events and happenings on and about Africa that reveal how sovereign debt issues are engaged by the various stakeholders.

This week, the WTO members of the East African Community, EAC, are undergoing a Trade Policy Review, (TPR), in Geneva. Of the six EAC members, only South Sudan is not a member of the WTO. South Sudan made a request to accede to the WTO in 2017 and this week, there is a meeting of the Working Party on South Sudan’s Accession to the WTO.