In a surprise decision (I mean, considering the makeup of this group) the US Supreme Court has denied Chevron Corporation's appeal that would shift damage claims of up to 27 billion USD to Ecuador's state owned oil company in the historic oil spill trial in the Amazon Basin. This decison was probably the last legal hope that the desperate oil giant had left.
from the press release by the Amazon Defense Coalition:
The Supreme Court’s move is the latest of several legal and political setbacks recently suffered by Chevron in the 16-year-old case, considered the largest environmental matter in the world. Experts have dubbed the contamination in Ecuador the “Amazon Chernobyl” and say a clean-up would dwarf any decontamination effort ever undertaken.
The dispute before the Court was between Chevron and Ecuador’s government, but it was spawned by a private lawsuit for environmental damages brought against Chevron by thousands of private citizens in the country’s Amazon region.
Damages in the private lawsuit, expected to end later this year, were estimated in 2008 at up to $27.3 billion by a team of court-appointed experts. Texaco (now Chevron) is accused of dumping billions of gallons of toxin-laden waste water into the Amazon rainforest from 1964 to 1990, when it operated a large oil concession in the area covering a 2,000 square mile area.
Indigenous groups complain their cultures have been decimated, while the Ecuador court report found high cancer rates related to oil contamination have caused roughly 1,400 excess deaths.
Meanwhile Chevron has been working to tie the case to trade deals with Ecuador.
Washington, DC (June 26, 2009) – Four U.S. Senators are urging the United States Trade Representative to reject efforts by Chevron to threaten the cancellation of trade benefits for Ecuador because the oil giant faces a $27.3 billion liability in the South American nation for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest.
A letter sent June 25 to USTR Ambassador Ron Kirk, signed by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), says: “We write to express our concern with Chevron Corporation’s efforts to petition your office concerning a pending lawsuit it is facing in the Ecuadorian legal system. It is our understanding that Chevron is seeking the threatened withdrawal of the [trade benefits] for Ecuador if this lawsuit moves forward.”
The Senators write: “Corporate responsibility at home and abroad is critical, particularly when it concerns human health and the environment. We request that you allow the legal proceedings in Ecuador to take their course without any undue intervention from the U.S. government.”
This letter is an echo of one written by then -Senator Barack Obama and Senator Leahy, in which they asked the same thing of the trade commission over Chevron's brazen attempts to affect trade relations between two sovereign nations for the company's benefit.
Chevron has been criticized for not coming clean before its shareholders over its financial exposure in the case. But it seems clear to everyone that the day of accounting is near.
The case is important in a global sense. Never before has a lawsuit by private citizens of a developing country against an industrial giant had as much success as this one seems to promise. The implications for the cause of environmental justice on the international stage are enormous. It's fitting that this case will be decided in a country where the rights of Nature, which the Andean people call Pachamama, have been installed in its constitution.
The final decision by the court in Ecuador is expected to come later this year.
Note: shortly after I click "publish" I'll be leaving in dawn light for my own communion with Pachamama, in the Hatfield Wilderness, which is between Mount Hood and the Columbia River. There I will practice what the Zen monks called Yumen, which means "to wander in the forest without thought of return." Have a happy 4th.