Plaintiffs in Bowoto v. Chevron Ask Supreme Court to Hear Case, EarthRights International, Mon, 2011-06-20

On behalf of nineteen Nigerian plaintiffs in Bowoto v. Chevron Corp., ERI filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court today asking the court to hear the case.  Specifically, the petition requests that the Supreme Court overturn the decision in the case by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that corporations such as Chevron cannot be sued for torture and extrajudicial killing under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA).

The litigation against Chevron arises out of an incident in 1998 in which Nigerian villagers occupied a Chevron offshore oil platform in the Niger Delta in order to protest environmental devastation and economic disruption caused by oil production.  After several days of peaceful protest, Chevron called in brutal Nigerian military and police forces to attack the protestors.  The security forces shot several protestors and killed two, including Arolika Irowarinun, whose family is among the plaintiffs in the case.

In December 2008, a San Francisco jury ruled against the Nigerian plaintiffs.  But the jury never heard the claim that Arolika Irowarinun was subjected to extrajudicial killing, because the court had ruled that Chevron could not be sued under the TVPA.  The only claim for Arolika’s death was a wrongful death claim which, due to idiosyncracies of Nigerian law, required a verdict beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Ninth Circuit rejected the plaintiffs’ appeal in September 2010, agreeing with the trial court that corporations could not be sued for torture or exttrajudicial killing under the TVPA; the court further rejected plaintiffs’ petition for rehearing in February 2011.  This ruling is in conflict with cases decided by another federal court of appeals, the Eleventh Circuit, which has repeatedly ruled that corporations can be sued under the TVPA.

We do not expect a decision from the Supreme Court on whether it will hear the case until September or October.

Documents:
Petition for Certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court

San Francisco, CA: Judge Susan Illston, on Wednesday, denied Chevron Corp’s request to recoup over $485,000 in costs associated with a human rights case filed by Nigerian villagers. The corporation said the plaintiffs owed them the costs – including the cost of photocopies and deposition fees – after they were found not liable last fall. However, the judge disagreed.

Lead Plaintiff Larry Bowoto with Attorney Bert Voorhees

“The economic disparity between plaintiffs, who are Nigerian villagers, and defendants, international oil companies, cannot be more stark,” Illston stated in her brief.

Illston compared Chevron’s 2008 earnings of $23.93 billion to the income of the villagers who were plaintiffs in the case citing their respective jobs at a gas station – (earning as much as $100 per month), operating a kerosene business ($867 per month), and odd jobs that involve cutting or selling firewood, fishing, and construction ($60 per month), among other low paying jobs, and stated that ten of the plaintiffs were minors who have no income.

The judge also cautioned against Chevron’s efforts to use the threat of a cost order such as the one requested by Chevron to deter future human rights litigation.

“At root, this case was an attempt by impoverished citizens of Nigeria to increase accountability for the activities of American companies in their country. Plaintiffs’ ultimate failure at trial does not detract from the fact that this was a civil rights case. The threat of deterring future litigants from prosecuting human rights claims in the future is especially present in a case such as this, where plaintiffs have paltry resources and defendants are large and powerful economic actors,” she continued in the brief.

The lawsuit was filed 10 years ago by Nigerian villagers who were peacefully protesting Chevron for the lack of jobs and environmental damage caused by the company in their communities. To quell the protest, Chevron paid for and transported the notoriously ruthless Nigerian military to remove the protesters from an oil platform where the villagers had staged a sit-in. As a result, two villagers were killed and several others were injured and tortured.

On December 1, 2008 a San Francisco jury found Chevron not liable. The plaintiffs have since appealed the decision in the 9^th circuit court of appeals.

Read the press release issued from the Plaintiffs counsel

Today Judge Susan Illston denied the Nigerian plaintiffs in the Bowoto v Chevron case their request for a new trial. Below is the press release issued by Earth Rights International, co-counsel to the case.

COURT DENIES NEW TRIAL IN HUMAN RIGHTS SUIT AGAINST CHEVRON:

PLAINTIFFS TO APPEAL

March 4, 2009, San Francisco, CA – A U.S. federal court today denied a request by Nigerian victims of human rights abuses for a new trial against Chevron, which was found not liable for aiding and abetting those abuses after a jury trial last December.  The plaintiffs in Bowoto v. Chevron had argued that a new trial was warranted due to insufficient evidence for the defense verdict, erroneous legal rulings, and prejudicial misconduct by Chevron’s lawyers.  Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California disagreed, letting the verdict stand.

Plaintiffs’ counsel Theresa Traber, of Traber & Voorhees, stated, “We are disappointed in the ruling and we will appeal.  We continue to believe that there were errors in this trial, and these victims, who waited so long to have their day in court, will continue to pursue justice against Chevron.”

The court ruled that, even though much of the plaintiffs’ evidence was undisputed by any Chevron witnesses, the jury still could have disbelieved the plaintiffs’ witness, and found that no legal errors had been made during the trial.  The court did acknowledge that defense counsel used evidence improperly in his closing argument, but found that this misconduct was not so prejudicial as to warrant a new trial.

Bowoto v. Chevron Corp., No. 99-2506, charged the multinational oil company with complicity in gross human rights abuses arising from its use of the notorious Nigerian military and “kill and go” mobile police against those who protested environmental and economic harms caused by oil production in the Niger Delta.  The lawsuit is based on a 1998 incident in which Nigerian soldiers shot nonviolent protesters at Chevron’s Parabe offshore platform. The soldiers were admittedly paid by Chevron, ferried to the platform in Chevron helicopters and supervised by Chevron personnel. Two demonstrators were killed, others were shot and wounded, and several others were detained and tortured after the attack.

In addition to Traber & Voorhees, the plaintiffs are represented by EarthRights International, the private law firms of Hadsell Stormer Keeny Richardson & Renick and Siegel & Yee; and Cindy Cohn and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Robert Newman, Paul Hoffman, Richard Wiebe, Anthony DiCaprio, Michael Sorgen, and Judith Chomsky and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

For more information about the case, please visit www.earthrights.org.

Chevron filed a motion seeking $485,000 in costs from the Nigerian villagers who sued the company for aiding and abetting shootings, killing and torture in U.S. federal court this fall. According to the most recent UN statistics in 2006 the per capita income for a Nigerian was $912. Justice in Nigeria Now! (JINN) notes that Nigerians living in the Niger Delta’s oil producing communities are the poorest in the country and although there are no readily accessible per capita income figures for a resident of the Delta, it is certain that the figure is significantly lower than for the population of country taken as a whole. JINN’s founder, Laura Livoti says that Chevron’s attempt to squeeze nearly half a million dollars out of poor villagers who don’t even have access to clean drinking water and who had wanted jobs with the company is a dramatic illustration of Chevron’s heartlessness. To get a sense of what Chevron is asking of these villagers you need to understand that $485,000 could sustain the people of at least four or five Ilaje villages of a few hundred people in the Niger Delta for a year. Contrast this request for $485,000 (nearly $200,000 for making photocopies) of poor villagers with the $23.4 billion in recordbreaking profit the company earned in 2008.

Typical house in Ikorigho, Nigeria where many of the plaintiffs reside Credit: Ed Kashi

While Chevron claims to be sympathetic to those who live where it extracts oil, the fact that the company would further impoverish the very people whose lives their operations have devastated and who were shot by the Nigerian military who were flown in and paid by Chevron is a perfect representation of the wide gulf that exists between reality on the ground and the executives in the headquarters and public relations suites located comfortably in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although the jury did not find Chevron liable in the Bowoto v. Chevron case, the fact that Chevron flew in the notoriously brutal military who shot killed and injured Nigerians staging a peaceful unarmed sit-in on the oil platform was not disputed by the company.

See recent article in the LA Times for further information on this story.

The Nigerian witnesses and plaintiffs send you their thanks and regards from the Niger Delta. After nearly three months in the San Francisco Bay Area during the human rights trial against Chevron, all of the Nigerians are safely and happily back at home. Although the U.S. jury did not hold Chevron accountable for its actions, it was never refuted in the Northern California District Court that Chevron paid and transported the Nigerian military to the platform in May 1998 and that two people were killed and several others injured by the military and police. The jurors, who avoided eye contact while their verdict was read, slipped silently out of the courthouse bypassing the media and the attorneys. Though we can’t tell you why the jurors came to the decision they did, we can tell you that for the Nigerians to prevail on any count all 9 jurors had to agree.

Nigerians meet with Richmond, CA community members

The Nigerian Ilaje and Itsekiri who were involved in this court case did not leave California with a sense of defeat; in fact the message that was declared throughout the days after the trial was one of victory to have made it this far and that “the struggle continues.” Immediately after the trial ended, having seen how organizations in the United States work, the Nigerians asked for help in building stronger local organizations in the Niger Delta with the goal of eventually creating a network to work together. JINN was able to arrange for an initial meeting with an organizational development professional to help them brainstorm initial organizational questions in the wake of the verdict. JINN hopes to be able to continue to provide appropriate support as the Nigerians actualize this thinking at home.

The Ilaje and Itsekiri returned home bolstered by meeting many supportive allies across the Bay Area and with the knowledge that they are not alone in this struggle. While they were in the Bay Area they met community members in Richmond, CA who live next to the Chevron refinery and are suffering from asthma and cancer as a result and with activists who have challenged Chevron for its highly polluting tar sands operations in Canada and those supporting the lawsuit against Chevron for the toxic mess in the Ecuadoran Amazon. They left with an understanding of their role in a greater movement that demands oil companies and all extractive industries conduct their business while respecting human rights, enhancing local community livelihoods and protecting the environment where they operate. JINN endeavors to continue to build on our relationships with our Nigerian allies.

Corporate Accountability Advocates Claim Victory, Despite Verdict in Human Rights Case Against Chevron

Bowoto Case Showed There is a Legal Foundation For Corporations to be Held Liable in US Courts for Human Rights Abuses Committed Overseas

SAN FRANCISCOO Monday, December 1, a US district court jury acquitted San Ramon-based Chevron Corporation of complicity in human rights abuses. The case of Bowoto v. Chevron, which pitted Chevron and its relationship with the notoriously violent Nigerian police and military against Nigerians who peacefully protested the destruction of their environment and livelihood by Chevron’s oil production activities. Despite the verdict, corporate accountability advocates vowed to continue the struggle to bring Chevron and other corporations to justice for human rights violations they commit overseas.

“The fact that Bowoto v. Chevron made it this far in the process is a victory in and of itself, because it means that we have demonstrated that there is a clear pathway in the US court system for holding corporations accountable to the rule of law. This is the first time a case against a company for aiding and abetting human rights violations overseas has even gone before a jury. And although we are disappointed that the plaintiffs did not prevail in this case, we are heartened by the fact that we are now entering a new era in the United States and abroad where people have seen the results of unregulated corporate excess (in the financial system and elsewhere) and want corporations to be reined in to prevent serious harms. Bringing this case to trial in the United States is a step on the path to corporate accountability. In the near future, corporations will no longer have a free ride to do operate with impunity in ways that are destructive and dehumanizing,” said Laura Livoti, founder of the group Justice in Nigeria Now.

“Regardless of the verdict, the Bowoto v. Chevron case represented a watershed in terms of corporate accountability. The details of the Nigerian case – of human rights abuses in the global operations of the oil and gas industry – can be replicated many times over in different industrial sectors in different parts of the world. Now communities around the world know that they have recourse to legal mechanisms to bring corporations that violate their human rights to justice,” said Michael Watts, a professor at UC Berkeley and author of numerous books on the Niger Delta, including Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta.

Bowoto v. Chevron concerned a 1998 incident in which Nigerian soldiers and police shot unarmed residents of the Ilaje community in southern Nigeria who were staging a nonviolent sit-in at Chevron’s offshore Parabe Platform to demand that Chevron change its practices. Chevron’s operations have devastated local communities’ access to food and clean water. The protester also demanded that the company support the local economy by hiring local residents. In response to the peaceful protest, Chevron summoned the notoriously violent Nigerian police and military and transported them in Chevron helicopters to the oil platform. Under the supervision of Chevron personnel, the Nigerian military and police killed two protesters and permanently injured others. Several protesters were taken to Nigerian jails, where they were tortured.

The jury was charged with deciding whether Chevron aided and abetted the Nigerian military, in violation of international law. The legal basis for the case was the Alien Tort Statute, a law that enables foreign victims of human rights violations by corporations to hold a US corporation accountable in US court for violations of the law of nations overseas. The Alien Tort Statute has been used in cases charging Unocal with violating the human rights of Burmese villagers during the construction of an oil pipeline in Burma, and charging Yahoo with giving the Chinese government information that allowed it to identify and arrest a Chinese dissident. Both of those cases ended in out-of-court settlements. Bowoto v. Chevron would have been the first time a U.S. corporation has been held liable by a jury in U.S. courts for aiding and abetting human rights abuses committed overseas.