U.S.
Judge Sides With Chevron in Case Against Ecuadorians, Allows Oil
Giant to Evade Justice
Crude
oil in an open toxic oil waste pit abandoned by Chevron in the
Ecuadorean Amazon Rainforest near Lago Agrio. Photo credit:
Rainforest Action Network
5
March, 2014
Amazon
Watch
stands with Ecuadorian communities in rejecting
a misguided judgment delaying
justice for some 30,000 indigenous people and farmers who continue to
suffer from the company’s
toxic legacy in the Amazon rainforest.
The decision—handed down yesterday by New York District Court Judge
Lewis Kaplan—also underscores the threat that well-financed
corporations pose to justice and the rule of law with their ability
to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on efforts to attack victims and
their allies.
Since
Chevron filed the bogus RICO action, Ecuadorians and their allies
have been relentlessly attacked by the company’s army of lawyers
and PR agents. These actions were unrelated to real events in
Ecuador, setting a dangerous precedent for corporate attacks on
constitutional rights.
“This
decision also effectively outlaws core activity protected by the
First Amendment such as bringing lawsuits, holding protests, issuing
press releases and engaging public officials,” said
Deepak Gupta,
attorney for the appellate team in response to the verdict. “This
is particularly appalling given that this case is about holding a
corporation accountable for refusing to clean up decades of toxic
pollution in the Amazon.”
Gupta,
formerly of Public
Citizen,
has argued on behalf of plaintiffs in several recent Supreme Court
cases, including the high-profile arbitration challenge AT&T
Mobility v. Concepcion.
For
well over a decade, Amazon Watch has stood with those affected by
Chevron’s
deliberate dumping of 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the
Amazon rainforest.
Despite admitting to the crime, Chevron has refused to take
responsibility for its actions, its “clean-up” efforts proven to
be a sham by its own evidence. The company’s role as sole operator
and designer of the extraction system in Ecuador makes it solely
liable for its actions, which is why the communities in Ecuador sued
Chevron themselves. Despite these facts Chevron has continued to
vilify the communities who continue to suffer and die from pollution.
Chevron’s
RICO suit and its attack on the victims has been condemned
by some of the largest environmental and social justice organizations
in the U.S., including the Sierra
Club,
and more than 100,000 U.S. citizens have written to the U.S. Senate
asking for an investigation of Chevron’s tactics to suppress free
speech.
Yesterday’s
verdict is an example of Chevron buying and bullying its way to a
verdict with 60 law firms and thousands of legal professionals
hell-bent on exhausting the Ecuadorians and their allies. Such a
verdict will ultimately prove useless in Chevron’s efforts to evade
justice.
Chevron
fought for years to have the case moved from a U.S. court to Ecuador
and Judge Kaplan—who first recommended that Chevron file the
case—holds no authority over Ecuadorian courts. Nor can he issue a
ruling preventing the Ecuadorian plaintiffs from collecting on an
enforceable verdict outside of the U.S.
Furthermore, Kaplan’s current order is effectively indistinguishable from an injunction issued by Kaplan in the case two years ago, which was struck down on appeal.
Furthermore, Kaplan’s current order is effectively indistinguishable from an injunction issued by Kaplan in the case two years ago, which was struck down on appeal.
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