Send a message to Chevron about their human rights and environmental abuses.
Sign a letter to Chevron’s CEO calling on Chevron to stop paying, transporting and housing the Nigerian military and police forces who shoot, injure and kill innocent unarmed protesters in Nigeria. Sign Letter!
“We got reports of crude floating on the waters in the high seas at the weekend and verified the report before contacting the Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) and Mobil officials,” [the Secretary of the Artisan Fishermen Association of Nigeria] said. “By Monday, the oil spill had landed on the coastline. Officials of the company and the agency, had come to see the site, our fishermen that came back from the sea had their nets and fishing gear contaminated by crude oil.”
Mr Irvin Obot, the Zonal Director of NOSDRA, confirmed that the agency had received reports of the oil spill incident at the Qua Iboe oil fields. “We got a report from the community and visited the site; there were traces of crude oil on the shoreline but we are yet to get a report from the operator of the oil fields,” he said.
Newly-signed Transparency Law requires companies to disclose payments on a country-by-country, and project-by-project basis
President Barak Obama signed into law today the financial reform bill passed by Congress last week-–with a landmark provision on transparency, which requires all extractive industries companies that file with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the U.S. to disclose the payments they make to governments wherever they operate.
Notably, these companies must disclose the payments on a country-by-country, and project-by-project basis–a level of specificity that will improve the ability to monitor the level of resource wealth that returns back to communities where oil, gas, and minerals are extracted.
This law breaks new ground by providing a means for people in resource-rich communities to hold their governments to account for their payments to governments around the world.
Read more about the importance of transparency in extractive industries here.
On June 30, the House of Representatives passed the same legislation that the Senate passed today. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law next week.
JINN and its members pioneered a U.S. grassroots strategy in support of the work of the U.S. and global Publish What You Pay Coalition, by mobilizing support from the cities of Berkeley, Oakland and Richmond, California. Each of these municipalities adopted a resolution in support of the Energy Security Through Transparency Act (which was the basis for the language that was passed today). These resolutions were used by the lobbying team on Capitol Hill.
This historic measure gives citizens in resource-rich countries information they need to combat corruption in the oil and mineral sector and to demand government accountability for responsible resource use. The House passed the same legislation on June 30, and it is expected to be signed into law by President Obama next week.
For decades, oil companies including Exxon Mobil have been operating in Nigeria under a double standard when compared to their operations in the United States or Europe. The response to the Gulf oil spill as compared to the response to the larger, repeated spills in the Niger Delta is emblematic of this practice.
Join JINN in supporting Niger Delta communities’ call for an environmental impact assessment of the damage caused by these spills; ongoing monitoring; environmental remediation; and an inclusive process to compensate impacted villagers, address ways to improve oil companies’ operations in Nigeria, and reduce the likelihood of future spills.
Tell Exxon to clean up their oil spills in the Niger Delta!
On July 5, 2010, a Nigerian federal high court ordered Shell Nigeria to pay 15.4 billion naira (roughly US$100 million) in special and punitive damages to a Rivers State community for an oil spill that occurred in 1970. The Ejama-Ebubu community filed suit in 2001 seeking damages and mandated clean-up of this spill, which has affected an area of approximately 630 acres.
Justice Buba, who entered the July 5, 2010 judgment, awarded damages based on the value of crops, loss of income from farming, and hunting; “injurious affection”; water supply; health hazards; and shock, fear, and desecration of shrines, among other elements. The award also included punitive damages of 10 billion naira (US$66.8 million) for “general inconveniences, acid rain, pollution of underground water and hardship to the population who have been deprived of the right to self sustenance, education and good life.”
Calling for more than just a monetary remedy, the judge directed Shell Nigeria to “de-pollute and rehabilitate the dry land swamps to its pre-impact status.”
In making these findings, Justice Buba wrote that “from the nature of the damages caused, the amount of general damages claimed is not exaggerated” and that “upon calm assessment on the unchallenged evidence of the plaintiffs,” he had “come to one and only inevitable conclusion, that the case of the plaintiffs have merit and accordingly accept the evidence that is capable of belief.”
