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Arabica Robusta

Ecuadoreans Plan Spasm of Lawsuits Against Chevron - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...16ecuador.html

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource ecuador chevron texaco social movements intervention human rights corporate

shared by Arabica Robusta on 19 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • The case stems from oil pollution in the Ecuadorean rain forest, but Chevron does not operate there and has no significant assets in the country. It was Texaco, which Chevron acquired in a merger in 2001, that was accused of widespread environmental damage before pulling out of Ecuador in the early 1990s.
  • Chevron has much larger operations elsewhere in Latin America, and the plaintiffs’ strategy of pursuing the company across the region could open a contentious new phase in the case — one that would test Ecuador’s political ties with its neighbors and involve some of Washington’s most prominent lobbyists and lawyers.
  • Advisers to the plaintiffs said Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela would be obvious candidates to pursue Chevron assets, but they acknowledged it would not be easy. Venezuela, for instance, is a close Ecuadorean ally and its president, Hugo Chávez, is a frequent critic of the United States. But Chevron has extensive operations in Venezuela and enjoys warmer ties with Mr. Chávez’s government than just about any other American company.
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  • In the memo, lawyers also identified the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Angola, Canada and several other countries where Chevron has significant assets as potential targets. In the Philippines, it even suggested using the services of Frank G. Wisner, the retired diplomat and a foreign affairs adviser for Patton Boggs, who recently waded into the crisis in Egypt as an envoy for the Obama administration.
  • The ruling’s impact is already being felt in Ecuador and beyond as a cautionary tale of the environmental and legal aftermath of oil exploration. Alberto Acosta, a former oil minister in Ecuador, called the ruling “a historical precedent.” It is “a reminder that we have to defend ourselves from the irresponsible activity of extraction companies, both oil and mining,” Mr. Acosta said.
  • Arabica Robusta on 19 Feb 11
     
    The case stems from oil pollution in the Ecuadorean rain forest, but Chevron does not operate there and has no significant assets in the country. It was Texaco, which Chevron acquired in a merger in 2001, that was accused of widespread environmental damage before pulling out of Ecuador in the early 1990s.
Arabica Robusta

New Amazon Oil Threat - The Price of Oil - 0 views

priceofoil.org/...new-amazon-oil-threat

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource peru chevron amazonwatch

shared by Arabica Robusta on 01 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • The battle for oil in the Amazon has often been overlooked recently due to the fight to keep oil companies out of the Arctic. But the threat remains and is set to get much worse
  • It is over twenty years since Judith Kimerling’s ground-breaking booklet Amazon Crude was published into the devastation of oil in Ecuador by Texaco. If you have never read Joe Kane’s stunning book Savages on the shocking cultural impact of Amazonian oil, you should add it to your reading list.
  • The latest warning about oil’s lethal legacy has come from neighbouring Peru.  On Monday, the country’s government declared an environmental state of emergency in a remote region of the rainforest near the Ecuadorian border, inhabited by the Quichua and Ashuar indigenous groups
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  • But in timing that is beyond ironic, the very same day that Peru issued its state of emergency, Ecuadorian officials were in the Hilton in Beijing offering over three million hectares of pristine Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies, including China Petrochemical and China National Offshore Oil.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - The Chevron precedent - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...65583

industry petroleum development oil international nigeria extractive curse resource transparency chevron pambazuka

shared by Arabica Robusta on 03 Jul 10 - Cached
  • The Bowoto case is the legal reaction to Chevron’s role in a 1998 protest by Nigerian community activists in the Niger Delta. The unarmed demonstrators boarded an oil platform and adjacent barge, property of subsidiary Chevron Nigeria Ltd, in protest over the environmental and economic damage caused by oil production in the region. The activists were attacked on 28 May by Nigerian authorities ferried to the floating protest by the oil corporation. Two men were killed and several more protestors injured. Three others claim detention and torture.
  • After nearly 10 years of pre-trial motions wherein many claims were dropped by a pre-trial judge, the case finally debuted in trial in October 2008 and a decision was handed down on 1 December the same year. The nine-bench jury decided in favour of Chevron, clearing the corporation of any liability under the various claims. It was a defendant’s victory, but civil society groups and legal experts still label the case a milestone in advancing corporate accountability.
  • The Bowoto case is the first time the multinational magnate Chevron USA Inc. has been successfully taken to a US court for the actions of an overseas subsidiary. ‘Chevron has a very intricate structure, used in part to try and shield itself from liability,’ Simons said. The case has effectively scrapped this corporate strategy.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 03 Jul 10
       
      To what extent will Chevron's corporate response strategy be scrapped by this decision?  It is a sad lesson in the state of corporate recklessness that a blanket victory for Chevron in court is nevertheless considered a "milestone in advancing corporate accountability."
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  • The case also broadens the recourse for victims of human rights abuse by American corporations, who can seek redress in US courts under the aiding-and-abetting theory used in Bowoto v. Chevron Corp. that a corporation can be held liable as a third party.
  • The ATS is a US law that lets foreign citizens bring claims to US courts for damages done outside of the country. Claims are rarely upheld however, because judges have narrowly interpreted how the ATS is applied. This happened in a 1993 class action suit against Chevron and subsidiary Texaco, representing some 30,000 residents in the Amazon according to Amnesty International. The case was dropped by the US courts and palmed off to Ecuador where it is still ongoing. Other corporations domestically unscathed after US courts dismissed ATS claims include Talisman Energy Inc., the Southern Peru Copper Corporation and Coca-Cola.
  • At trial the District Court judge found a corporation is not an individual and can therefore not be sued under the TVPA. ‘This is significant. Most of the important legal precedents in this case have already been set … this is the only rule of law question [in the appeal].’ The TVPA is a civil law that lets citizens file a suit against another party that, acting for a foreign nation, commits torture or extrajudicial killing. In Bowoto v. Chevron Corp. the TVPA claim was thrown out. The word ‘individual’, according to the trial judge, does not describe the multinational Chevron.
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