Chevron
Corp. vs Donziger el al
For any of you who follow environment law, or just
news-related subjects, the ongoing case between the Chevron Corporation and a
group of Ecuadorian villagers from the Lago Agrio region within the country,
continues after more than ten years. Just recently, the guardian posted an
article in which an Ecuadorian lawyer named Juan Pablo Saenz, and who
represents small farmers against Chevron in this case, received death threats –
“They said to me: ‘Think very carefully about what you are doing, because it
would be a shame if something happened to you and your family’.” This comes
after an Ecuadorian court ruled in favor of the villagers, and fined Chevron
USD 8bn in damages for widespread contamination in the Amazon basin in Ecuador
during the years Texaco was operational in the country, roughly 1962 to 1990,
though the years change by ten years depending on the report that you read. Texaco
was acquired by Chevron in 2001.
This seems like something straight out of a scene of the
popular Netflix series, House of Cards.
However, Chevron, rightfully defending itself, asserted that the main lawyer in
this case, Steven Donziger from the United States, acted on fraud, corruption,
and other related means. It is so much Chevron’s belief that this is so, that
in February 2011, they filed a civil lawsuit against him and his associates
under the “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)” in a
District Court in Southern New York, with Judge Lewis Kaplan.
What follows, is the strange stance Judge Kaplan has
taken in this case. After ruling in favor of Chevron in the US District Court
of New York, Chevron, as well as the Judge, have taken upon themselves to issue
a global injunction against the Ecuadorian team from seeking damages wherever
else Chevron does its operations. In fact, a court in Canada has decided to
hear out cases regarding this issue despite the effort. My own understanding of
the workings of a Judge, is that they are to rule on cases, and then move on to
the next, not continually support one side against the other. In response to
this, the website, chevrontoxico,
issued a report where they state that Judge Kaplan holds Ecuadorian law
unworthy of his attention. They say that “Judge Kaplan revealed his disrespect
for the courts of a small, Latin American nation like Ecuador in comparison
nations, such as the United Kingdom, apparently deemed worthy of [his] respect.”
Besides the above, many questions linger. The initial
ruling said Chevron had to pay USD 18bn, however, the Ecuadorian National Court
of Justice reduced the payment. Moreover, during his legal process, little
mention has been of the environmental damage that has been caused. As the
Swedish, Umea International School of Public Health states, “more than 30bn
gallons of toxic wastes and crude oil had been discharged into the land and
waterways of Ecuador’s Amazon basin.” In comparison, this is a vastly bigger
number than the 205m gallons by BP’s Deepwater Horizon, or 10.8 by Exxon Valdez
in 1989. Lastly, a documentary, titled Crude,
leaked footage where Donziger knowingly and straightforwardly acknowledges
efforts to intimidate the Ecuadorian Judge in charge of the case in the
country. However, one begs to question, why would he be foolish enough to say
that in camera? Did he know what he was saying was going to be leaked? Did he
have underlying purposes going farther than the obvious?
These
are just good questions to look for when reading on this ongoing legal case.
Whatever the result, we must remember that it is the people of Ecuador who are
being affected, and who need relief and assistance from their polluted homeland
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