WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court said Monday it will consider a lawsuit accusing Royal Dutch Shell of human rights abuses, a case that could make companies liable for torture or genocide committed overseas.

The plaintiffs — relatives of seven Nigerians killed by the country’s former military regime — sued the Anglo-Dutch energy giant and other firms for apparently enlisting the government to suppress resistance to oil exploration in the Niger Delta in the 1990s.

The case will assess the potential liability of corporations — including multinationals with a US presence — under the Alien Tort Statute, a US law dating back to 1789 which scholars say was meant to assure foreign governments that the United States would help prevent breaches of international law.

The 12 Nigerian plaintiffs charge Shell with “complicity in human rights violations committed against them in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta in Nigeria between 1992 and 1995,” according to their complaint put before the court.

“These violations included torture, extra-judicial executions and crimes against humanity.”

It said Shell “aided and abetted the Nigerian government in committing human rights abuses,” and added: “For the victims of human rights violations such cases often provide the only opportunity to obtain any remedy for their suffering.”

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image credit: Sweet Crude

Read the Reuters piece on the same subject

by Patrick Naagbanton, Thursday 4 August 2011
Reposted from  guardian.co.uk

Shell’s admission of liability for two massive oil spills in 2008-09 in my village of Bodo in the Niger Delta is a step forward in the long struggle for corporate accountability. An impoverished village that yesterday lay in ruins has today felt a welcome glimmer of hope and justice.

We are happy with the news that Shell could be forced to clean up the environmental devastation it has caused and to pay more than $400m in compensation. But our jubilation is overshadowed by more than five decades of environmental and social injustice yet to be addressed.

Bodo village is a fishing community in the minority Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. Shell was forced out of Ogoni in 1993, following mass protests led by writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed on 10 November 1995 alongside eight other campaigners. Shell’s vast network of oil wells, pipelines, flow-stations and gas flares remained in Ogoni and are an everyday reminder of what we have suffered.

Many of Shell’s rusty, leaky pipelines date back to the 1970s and have been poorly maintained ever since (see pages 31-36 and 43 of Friends of the Earth Netherlands report). It was equipment failure that caused Shell’s high-pressure Trans-Niger pipeline to rupture on 28 August 2008, gushing an estimated 2,000 barrels of oil per day into Bodo for weeks. The land and water was covered in thick layers of crude. Shell was also responsible for a second spill from the same pipeline on 2 February 2009.

Oil spills have effectively destroyed my community. Local farmers and fishers were forced to abandon their traditional ways of life. Bodo Creek is, ecologically speaking, dead. The fish that were not killed by the heavy pollution now reek of petroleum and cannot sustain a village population of 69,000 people. Shell has violated our basic human rights to food, water and livelihood. The compensation Shell offered us – £3,500 plus bags of rice and sugar – was insulting and wholly inadequate.

Full article

Image: Ogoni Spill-Amensty International photos

Watch the full video and join the discussion by adding your comments here.

image credit: Ken Saro-Wiwa from remember saro-wiwa, http://remembersarowiwa.com

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said Thursday that the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), its producing arm, will soon commence production from the 30 oil fields belonging to Shell Petroleum Development and Production Company (SPDC) in Ogoniland.

Group Managing Director (GMD) of NNPC, Engr. Austen Oniwon, who confirmed the development in an interview with journalists in Abuja, said the move was in line with the Corporation’s mandate to produce 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day in 2015.

Oniwon said to achieve the set mandate, the NPDC has grown its asset base in three fold preparatory to becoming a big player in the upstream sector, while the enabling environment has been provided by the Federal Government

The SPDC was forced to abandon the prolific oil wells in 1995, following the crisis that greeted the murder of former President of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ken Saro-Wiwa.

However, in 2008, the Federal Government announced that the oil fields would be handed over to another operator acceptable by the Ogonis on grounds that there was a total loss of confidence between the Ogoni people and Shell. Government reasoned that the solution to the crisis was to allow an operator acceptable to Ogonis to take over exploration activities in the area.

The pronouncement had pitched Shell against the Federal Government, as the oil giant insisted that it would not hands off those blocks to any operator, other than a Joint Venture partner. Shell had faulted government’s decision and resisted initial plans to hand over the control of the Nigerian oil fields to Chinese oil companies.

After intense lobbying, government named the NPDC as the new operator of the oil blocks, a development, which received the commendation of Shell, which under the NPDC’s operatorship, would continue to be a shareholder in the Ogoniland operations.

The news of the NPDC’s planned commencement of exploration has elicited reactions from Ogoni people, who vowed last month to resist any such moves.

MOSOP President, Mr. Ledum Mitee, told THISDAY recently that the Federal Government was yet to contact the Ogoni people on the planned take-over, insisting that any company that would be allowed to explore oil in Ogoniland must be acceptable by the people of Ogoni.

“I have not been contacted about the plan by the NPDC to begin production, although the government was considering appointing a new operator. Our position as always is that Shell must be replaced. So it is important that government should first discuss whoever will be coming with us. I should expect government to contact us for discussion first and for us to know who is coming what the company stands for and what they are bringing to the table. We don’t want Shell or something like Shell or a company that will work for Shell,” he said.

Also, Ogoni people, under the umbrella of National Union of Ogoni Students, USA, recently cautioned Shell, NPDC and the NNPC against what it described as the danger of back door negotiations with acclaimed stakeholders, and vowed that neither Shell, NPDC nor NNPC would be allowed to operate in the area.

The students in a statement titled “Ogoni Allegations Against the Nigerian Government and Shell”, a copy of which was made available to THISDAY warned against using the security forces to terrorise the people of Ogoni in order to start oil production.

The statement read: “We also discovered that the Rivers State government, NPDC, Shell and the federal authority are making another calculated attempt to start oil production in Ogoni without meeting the demands of the people as stated in the Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR). They planned to do this through the use of the already established security task forces (Abacha style) coupled with some help from the deceptive works of the UNEP. We strongly advise the Rivers State government to stop using the State security taskforce to terrorise the people of Ogoni in order to start oil production.

“We abhor a repeat of state and corporate sponsored violence that characterised the 1990s’ which was used by the Nigerian government as a pretext to kill prominent Ogoni leaders and over 4000 Ogoni indigenes for demanding their rights. Ogoni students viewed these secret attacks as a sponsored activity by Shell Oil and the authority to resume oil operations in Yorla Oil Fields. We shall be forced to take civil actions against Shell and all those behind these constant threats to the peace of Ogoni”.

A United States Appeal Court on Friday refused to entertain a lawsuit that accused Royal Dutch Shell Plc of helping Nigerian authorities violently to suppress protests against oil exploration in the 1990s.

Specifically, the plaintiffs, families of seven Ogoni indigenes who were executed by the regime of the late General Sani Abacha, had accused the oil giant of violations related to the 1995 hangings of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other protesters by Nigeria’s then-military government.

The Ogoni Nine

In the case – Kiobel et al v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co et al, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Nos. 06-4800 and 06-4876, the plaintiffs had sought their claims from the oil giant under a 1789 U.S. law known as the Alien Tort Statute.

The Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) was adopted in 1789 as part of the original Judiciary Act. It gave the federal courts jurisdiction to hear tort claims brought by foreigners who allege a violation of international law or a treaty to which the United States is a party. For almost two centuries, the statute was relatively dormant, supporting jurisdiction in only a handful of cases. However, it was later invoked in several cases involving torture, disappearances, or killings committed by non-Americans in foreign countries.

In a divided vote that prompted a bitter debate among some of its judges, the US appellate court affirmed a September ruling, which held that companies cannot be liable in U.S. courts for violations of international human rights law.

Reuters reported that the full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York declined to hear the case by a 5-5 vote and instead left intact the original 2-1 panel ruling from September. Separately, the judges in that panel voted 2-1 not to rehear the case, the report said, added that the Friday ruling may not be the end of the lawsuit.

“The 2nd Circuit is alone among federal circuit courts in concluding that corporations cannot be responsible under U.S. law for human rights violations, ” the newswire quoted an international law professor at George Washington University, Ralph Steinhardt as saying. “This clears the way for the plaintiffs to seek review at the Supreme Court,” he added. The report added that a lawyer who has represented the families, Paul Hoffman, and Shell, did not immediately return requests for comment.

Shell had since denied allegations it is involved in human rights abuses.The 2nd Circuit ruling, the report said, applies in New York, Connecticut and Vermont. The Alien Tort Statute had underpinned other human rights cases. Reuters reported that in one, mining company Rio Tinto Plc was accused of forcing workers in Papua New Guinea to live in “slave like” conditions, and pushing the government to exact retribution after a mine was sabotaged.

The report cited another case where plaintiffs sought to hold Ford Motor Co. General Motors Co. and International Business Machines Corp liable for helping South African authorities when apartheid was in force more than two decades ago.

Friday’s split ruling showed major differences in the judges’ thinking. Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs, part of the September panel that ruled for Shell, wrote that the original ruling “has no great practical effect except for the considerable benefit of avoiding abuse of the courts to extort settlements.”

He chided what he called fears by dissenting Judge Pierre Leval that “slavers and pirates will now rush into corporate transactions,” resulting in “absolution to moral monsters. For the record: even moral monsters are humans, and I would happily see them hanged.” Leval countered that Jacobs’ opinion evinces an “intense, multi-faceted policy agenda” underlying an effort “to exempt corporations from the law of nations.”

The report noted that other judges who favored a rehearing by the entire court said the case presented “a significant issue,” and that September’s ruling conflicted with a 2008 ruling from the 11th Circuit appeals court, which sits in Atlanta.

See another article on this story:  Shell not liable for rights violations, UPI, published: Feb. 8, 2011 at 9:44 AM

Surrounded by journalists during climate talks, Copenhagen, Dec 2009, image: rightlivelihood.org

As environmentalists and climate justice activists gather from around the world in Cancun, Nigerian activist Nnimmo Bassey, accepting the prestigious Right Livelihood Award, spoke in Stockholm, Sweden about the false solutions being promoted at the UN Climate talks.

He noted gas flaring in Nigeria as a particularly egregious example of World Bank plans to extend support from carbon trading to gas flare projects in the Niger Delta. As gas flaring has been illegal in Nigeria since 1984, this amounts to rewarding organized crimes with carbon credits and cash. Here are Nnimmo Bassey’s comments before the Swedish Parliament, as published by Democracy Now:

NNIMMO BASSEY: Climate change is a clear manifestation of what can happen when a mode of civilization is driven by factors that are clearly destructive. The fossil fuels-driven civilization has driven humanity to the brink, often termed the tipping point, with regard to the climate crisis. The time has come for action to be taken to reverse the trend. The time has come for the world to look away from the carbon-driven development path and its governing mentality. It is time to end carbon offsetting and carbon speculations as solutions to climate change. We have to see trees for what they are and not pretend that they are nothing more than carbon stocks.

The false solutions being paraded at the conference of the parties going on at Cancún can get as shocking as when organized climate crimes are rewarded with carbon credits and cash. An insulting example is one where the World Bank plans to extend support from the carbon trade route to gas flare projects in the Niger Delta. The unethical base of this scam can be seen in the fact that gas flaring has been an illegal act in Nigeria since 1984. And there is no way the halting of an illegal activity should end carbon credits—except if the entire carbon trade bazaar is a scam.

Permit me at this point to remember a man who fought courageously against environmental damage by a dangerous machinery of state and the corporations. Ken Saro-Wiwa, who received the Right Livelihood Award 1994, a year before he was hanged by the military that was in power in Nigeria then, he stood for nonviolent resistance to erosion of environmental rights and socio-political justice. Although he lost his life at the hands of undemocratic forces, the path he charted remains the only way viable—the only viable option and way out of the Niger Delta quagmire. I salute the courage of all those who toe this path for the resolution of conflicts. I salute the suffering communities and peoples resisting destructive extraction. It is their courage that sustains our struggle.

It is time to say no to the pretense that agrofuels can replace fossil fuels or that they are renewable and green, when it is clear that they are not. The focus on agrofuels has led to massive land grabs in Africa. This has meant marginalization of the poor, pressures on food supplies, diversion of land from food crop production, deforestation, and abuse of human rights, to mention just a few. It has also been seen by the biotech industry as a crack in the door, allowing them to introduce genetically engineered crops where such would ordinarily be resisted and rejected.

It is time to establish an international climate crimes tribunal, as proposed by the Peoples Agreement drawn up in April 2010 at Cochabamba, Bolivia. Such a tribunal would function in a way comparable to the International Court of Justice, where crimes against humanity are tried. The climate crimes tribunal would try any sort of environmental crime that harms Mother Earth, and thus the right of the people for a safe environment. These would be seen as crimes against humanity. Culprits to be tried would include polluters such as those in the extractive industry. It would also put corporations, as well as their directors, in the dock for climate and environmental crimes, which are, in effect, crimes against humanity.

“Saro-Wiwa was framed, secret evidence shows”, Andy Rowell and Eveline Lubbers, The Independent UK, Sunday, 5 December 2010

Compelling new evidence suggests the Nigerian military killed four Ogoni elders whose murders led to the execution of the playwright and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995.

image credit: Ken Saro-Wiwa from remember saro-wiwa, http://remembersarowiwa.com

The evidence also reveals that the notorious military commander Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Okuntimo, whose troops were implicated in murder and rape, was in the pay of Shell at the time of the killings and was driven around in a Shell vehicle.

Since the time of Saro-Wiwa’s death, Shell has insisted that it had no financial relationship with the Nigerian military, although it has admitted paying it “field allowances” on two occasions. It has consistently denied any widespread collusion and payments. However, The Independent on Sunday has gained exclusive access to witness accounts that were to be used in evidence in the case of Wiwa vs Shell, brought by Ken Saro-Wiwa’s family. The case was settled last May for $15.5m, just days before it was due to start in New York. The settlement meant the testimonies were never made public.

They provide fresh insight into Shell’s financial and logistical involvement with the Nigerian military and with Lt-Col Okuntimo.

One of the key witnesses due to testify was Boniface Ejiogu, Lt-Col Okuntimo’s orderly in the Internal Security Task Force, a coalition of army, navy and police. Mr Ejiogu testified to standing guard as victims were raped and tortured while Lt-Col Okuntimo was in command. Asked if he ever saw his commander receive money from Shell, he said he witnessed it on two occasions.

Mr Ejiogu described in detail how, just days before the Ogoni elders were murdered, he drove with Lt-Col Okuntimo to Shell’s base in Port Harcourt, where the officer received seven large bags of money. “I was there when other soldiers were carrying the Ghana Must Go bags,” he testified. The bags were so heavy the soldiers had difficulty carrying them, and one fell open. “The thing opened,” Mr Ejiogu said. “I saw it was money in bundles. He said, wow, this is money. I say, yes man, it is money.”

On another occasion, Mr Ejiogu witnessed four bags being given by a Shell security official to Lt-Col Okuntimo at the official’s house late at night.

Another witness, Raphael Kponee, also due to testify, was a policeman working for Shell. On a different occasion, he saw three bags being loaded into Lt-Col Okuntimo’s pick-up truck by his driver and another driver in front of the security building at the Shell base. Shell officials have admitted that money was paid to the officer, but purely as field allowances for his men, who were protecting Shell property in Ogoniland.

MrEjiogu also offers compelling evidence as to who may have murdered the four Ogoni elders at a meeting on 21 May 1994. Saro-Wiwa was due to speak but was turned away by the military. Mr Ejiogu said he heard Lt-Col Okuntimo tell his task force commander to “waste them… in the army you waste them is when you are shooting rapidly”.

Within 24 hours Saro-Wiwa was arrested and charged with the murders. It was implied that he had had the elders killed because of their moderate stance on Ogoni issues. Despite an international outcry, he was hanged in November 1995, following a sham trial described by the then British prime minister, John Major, as “judicial murder”.

A Shell spokesman said yesterday: “Allegations concerning Okuntimo and Shell are not new. There is a lack of any credible evidence in support of these allegations. Shell Petroleum Development Corporation and Shell at the time spoke out frequently against violence and publicly condemned its use.”

The Ogoni Nine

Police Open Fire at Ogoni Vigil in Port Harcourt

By Ben Amunwa, Remember Saro-Wiwa,  November 9, 2010

It’s the kind of text message you never want to receive. Sent from an activist in the Niger Delta on November 9th at 22.00, it reads:

Teams of heavily armed policemen stormed Saro-Wiwa’s No. 24 Aggrey Road, Port Harcourt, venue of the Saro-Wiwa candle light procession, shooting sporadically causing fear and panic.

[UPDATE 11/11/10: we have received further reports that police had beaten demonstrators with gun butts, kicks and horsewhips, leaving 12 people injured in the attack]. The crackdown shows utter contempt for the lives of Ogoni demonstrators, and infringes on their rights to freedom of assembly. Despite decades of non-violent protest, the Nigerian police continue to respond to demonstrators with brutal and excessive force. Similar repression occurred on 12th October last year when 13 people were shot and at least one person killed by police and army soldiers at Bundu Ama waterfront community in Port Harcourt, where residents were trying to protect their homes from government demolitions. On 5th April 2009, a number of well-known Delta activists were beaten and illegally detained by police. They were released following international pressure and interventions by civil society groups. On 26th May 2009, a rally in Ogoniland, timed to coincide with the landmark human rights lawsuit Wiwa v Shell in New York, was disrupted by police who arrested and detained five bus-loads of demonstrators. Women protestors were also beaten with rifle-butts and iron bars in January 2009, outside the gates of a Shell contractor.

Every year, Ogoni people assemble at 24 Aggrey Road in remembrance of Saro-Wiwa and his eight colleagues. In the 1990s, the building used to be known as the “Ogoni Embassy”. There is every indication that the protests will continue, because they have done so in defiance of police repression, military occupation and environmental devastation for well over 20 years. Perhaps one day, the government will stop using violence long enough to listen to the Ogoni’s message of human dignity and justice for all.

An afterthought contained in the text message reads:

“You can kill the Messenger, but you can’t kill the message” That was Ken Saro-Wiwa’s memorable words before he and other of his 8 comrades were hanged’

Ken Saro Wiwa

Fifteen years ago Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists who led protests against Shell Oil company were hanged by the Nigerian government after a sham trial on trumped up charges.

Today as we remember Ken Saro Wiwa and his colleagues, we continue to fight for an end to human rights violations and environmental destruction by Big Oil in Nigeria.

The Ogoni Nine

Also today we share with you new revelations about Shell’s PR strategy after the deaths of the Ogoni activists.

“The documents offer a previously hidden insight into efforts by the company to deflect the PR storm that engulfed it after the Nigerian activist was hanged by the country’s military government. Shell faced accusations that it had colluded with the government over the activists’ deaths.” –Eveline Lubbers and Andy Rowell, The Guardian

The Guardian piece makes note that a Shell spokesperson said that the company’s environmental record had “improved greatly” in recent years, outlining the difference between the number of oil spills in 2009 (132) versus the average number between 2005 and 2009 (175 per year.)

For readers who want more background, there is a new series of podcasts marking the 15th anniversary of the execution of Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa produced by PLATFORM’s remember saro-wiwa project. JINN’s friend and partner on the ground Emem Okon, the Director of the Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, who joined us in the Bay Area and in Houston last May is featured in Episode 1: “Fifteen Years of Not Getting Justice.”

By Oronto Douglas

November 20, 2009

Reposted from NEXT

Militancy and amnesty aside, the challenge of resolving the puzzle that has denied the many communities and clans of the resource rich Niger Delta has reached emergency levels. Although the crisis was easily predictable, successive governments had treated the anger and protests as mere irritations that can be brushed aside with warning shots, arrests or in extreme cases, devastating attacks on communities.

For scholars and survivors, there is something new that should worry all lovers of peace and livelihood – the completed project of the regionalization of anger and the now emerging nationalization of grievances anchored on stubborn defiance.

In the early days of the struggles by our people against the corporations and governments, the focus of mobilisation remained in islands of clans with small numbers of dedicated individuals and rarely was cross clan collaboration involved. In the renewed agitations of the 1990s, the idea of clan collaboration began to take firm root with the emergence of the Chikoko Movement and several groups worked like this.

The Chikoko Movement played a critical role in bringing the youths of Urhobo, Ibibio, Oron, Ogoni, Isoko, Ikwerre, Ijaw, and Etche together in the late 1990s.

Many conferences of ethnic nationalities were to follow and in a rotational way, hosted by the Ijaws (through the INC), Ikwerre (through Ogbakor Ikwerre) among others.

Present day agitation now cuts across states and nationalities, with broad based groups including the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) with its advocacy of armed struggle, insisting on justice. The anger across the region is now also noticeable, even among children. The story is told of a 13-year-old boy in Port Harcourt who can identify the sounds of the different guns – be it Pump Action; AK47; GMG and so on – and would warn his friends about when to be on the lookout. We cannot afford to ruin the future by inaction. We have to do something now.

It is important that we constantly remind ourselves what the struggle is all about.

The struggle of the people of the Niger Delta is about respect for our human dignity. The undemocratic seizure of the resources of the people of the Niger Delta by the military regimes following the civil war; the relentless assault on the environment by the uncaring activities of resource hunters otherwise known as transnational oil companies; the destruction of communal governance traditions , are all part of the fallout of the disrespect for our humanity. Our struggle is aimed at reversing these degrading acts and we must not be mistaken about this.

On this day, in this hour, there is a call to all patriots to rally round to resolve the issues of the Niger Delta because the implications of a non-resolution are unthinkable and unacceptable. On the shoulders of the Niger Delta rest Nigerian and West African regional stability. As we all know, our oil and gas based energy needs are mostly domiciled in the region so also is a majority of our maritime and fishing resources. Should the tide turn and tourism take a greater focus, the Niger Delta with its bounties of beaches and nature will play a critical role in further stabilizing the polity and bringing needed revenue and happiness to our country.

It is in the interest of all that we give unto the Niger Delta what the people of the Niger Delta want within, of course, the limits of justice, fair play and equity. The window of militancy and amnesty is an arithmetic indication of how much the situation had degenerated and a clarion call to all that we prevent a further slide to anomie.

Nigerians are good people. There is nothing complex about our togetherness. It is true that all the nations within our country had no hand in our coming together in the 1914 initiative of the British. Yet, our unique stories and identities add great beauty to the good and running story of our union in the making. It can only get better.

Therefore, we can begin from the very beginning by initiating policies that will protect the haves from the have-nots, enshrine rights, duties and obligations that protect the minorities from the majorities in our unifying constitutional documents. Our yearning for democracy, development and peace will constantly be delayed if not denied except and until we can settle those unsettling issues of our togetherness.

Oronto Douglas writes from San Francisco, California