Nigerians seek $1 billion from Shell for oil spills

By Mira Oberman | AFP – Thu, Oct 20, 2011

Re-posted from AFP

A Nigerian tribal king filed a lawsuit in a US court seeking $1 billion from Royal Dutch Shell to compensate for decades of pollution that sickened his people and damaged their lands, his lawyer said.

The suit was filed a day after the US Supreme Court said it will consider a lawsuit accusing Shell of human rights abuses in Nigeria in a landmark case that could make companies liable for torture or genocide committed overseas.

That 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 that scholars say was meant to assure foreign governments that the United States would help prevent breaches of international law.

The latest case alleges that Shell’s Nigerian operations are “well below internationally recognized standards to prevent and control pipeline oil spills” because the Anglo-Dutch company “has not employed the best available technology and practices that they use elsewhere in the world.”

It cited a recent United Nations report that found that contamination was widespread in the Nigerian Delta after 50 years of oil extraction left groundwater badly contaminated and the soil soaked with hydrocarbons to depths of five meters.

The suit was brought on behalf of the people of Ogale in the Eleme local government area, where the UN team found the most serious groundwater contamination and people drinking water laced with cancer-causing benzene at 900 times World Health Organization guidelines.

Scientists found an eight centimeter layer of refined oil floating on the groundwater that served the wells. The oil was linked to a spill that had occurred six years earlier and was not properly cleaned up.

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photo credit: © Kadir van Lohuizen/NOOR

From the website of Amnesty International: http://blog.amnestyusa.org/business/shell-accused-over-misleading-figures-on-nigeria-oil-spills/

17 October 2011
Re-posted from AFP

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.”

Full article

image credit: Sweet Crude

Read the Reuters piece on the same subject

Nigeria: U.S. Court Declines to Hear Suit Against Shell, Chika Amanze-Nwachuku, This Day, AllAfrica Global Media, 8 February 2011

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

Last week, the historic trial against Shell oil filed by the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa and others was delayed by one more week. According to the article by the AFP, the Judge Kimba Wood gave no explanation for the delay:

NEW YORK (AFP) — A pre-trial conference scheduled in the potentially landmark lawsuit brought by Nigerian plaintiffs against oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has been delayed until Wednesday, court papers show. Read Full Article

Ogoni Activist Suanu Bere speaks at San Francisco Shell protest. credit: Jan Sturmann

However, protests and rallies that began on May 19 for Shell’s shareholder meeting in the Hague and in London continued last week to call on Shell to end gas flaring in the Niger Delta – a demand that Wiwa and the Ogoni’s were asking for over 15 years ago and people of the Delta are still asking today.

JINN led the Bay Area protest with a large banner that read:  “Shell:  Stop Gas Flaring in Nigeria” and signs that read:  “Remember Ken Saro-Wiwa  and Shell:  Stop  Toxic Flares in Nigeria”

San Francisco activists hold Shell protest on May 19 - the day of Shell's shareholder meeting. credit: Jan Sturmann

Bere Suanu, an Ogoni from Nigeria spoke about how the Nigerian military tortured him at a time when Shell was paying the Nigerian military to quell protests in Ogoniland.

Then, on May 26 – the day the trail was set to begin – activists in South Africa led by groundWork held a solidarity rally to bring attention to the trial in New York and Shell’s dirty operations in Durban, South Africa

Activists protesting in South Africa - Shell's Hell

According to the Shell Guilty campaign other protests took place around the globe including:

In Nigeria, a rally, a candlelit vigil at the graveside of Ken Saro-Wiwa, and a mock trial were held at Bane, in Saro-Wiwa’s community. The events ran into controversy after Rivers State Police arrested a number of women activists in an attempt to prevent them from attending demonstrations. Protestors demanded their release, and eventually forced the police to release the detainees and respect their right to protest.

A noon rally took place in New York at Foley Square in Manhattan, near the federal courthouse where the trial had been scheduled to open today. A hundred supporters came out ahead of the trial, unfurling a banner that read, ‘JUSTICE FOR THE OGONI’. Inspiring speakers stressed that Shell cannot escape justice for their role in human rights abuses in the 1990s, and put pressure on Shell to end the ongoing environmental and social devastation in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region. A group of Ogoni activists closed the event by singing the Ogoni solidarity anthem.  Go to ShellGuilty.com for more information.

The trial is expected to commence no earlier than June 2nd.

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