We have been hearing a lot about big oil lately and the dismal attempt by the Obama administration to hold BP accountable for its damage indicates that big oil is going to continue to be a big bully. Some have been calling for legal remedies. But a case of oil pollution that has over fifteen years of "experience" might make us nervous about any attempt to hold BP accountable in the courts.
A section of the Amazon larger than the entire state of Rhode Island has been decimated by pollution from the oil industry. The indigenous population in the polluted area suffers from astronomical cancer rates, low birth rates and water quality related death and disease. From 1964 until 1992, Texaco, now Chevron, developed and exploited this oil-rich area. Today, a legal team representing the indigenous Ecuadorian population is trying to hold Chevron accountable.
The legal battle, started in 1993, has been through three different court systems without success. This struggle between residents and big oil illustrates how international investment and the agreements that facilitate it, undermine the principles of justice creating a system where wealth dictates legal success.
When residents of the Oriente, Ecuador launched their class action law suit, they did so in the United States under a special legislative measure called the Alien Tort Claims Act that allows international litigation to occur in American courts under special circumstances. Chevron argued that the case should be heard in Ecuador - the location of the conflict - and the U.S. courts agreed. But then the government changed in Ecuador and the new regime was much less likely to bend over backwards to please big oil, so Chevron came back to the U.S. to gain permission to transfer the case to arbitration. Their reasons: the Ecuadorian court they loved so much in the first case was now part of a corrupt justice system that failed to abide by the rule of law when dealing with Chevron.
The U.S., again, found that Ecuador was competent to hear the case and suspended the arbitration. So, in 2009, Chevron decided to enter into a different arbitration proceeding under the bilateral investment treaty between Ecuador and the United States, claiming that a fraudulent "clean up" effort in 1990 of a small subsection of the polluted Amazon area should release it from all tort claims under the terms of the investment treaty. This arbitration, as well as the proceeding in Ecuador, is ongoing.
Fifteen years of litigation has taught the legal community some important lessons.
The first is that endless litigation drains the resources of plaintiffs in David-Goliath type cases - those kinds of cases it is most important to see in the courts where the principles of justice can protect weak parties and meet out remedies fitting to the crime and damages caused. Chevron has an endless pocket. It made 25 billion dollars of profit last year alone. And it surely intends to use its economic advantage to draw out litigation until the plaintiffs' resources dry up. Plaintiff's lawyer Steven Donzinger collected Chevron statements that indicate that it will mete out "a lifetime of litigation" if the indigenous groups persisted in their claim. Chevron's general counsel stated that he expected to lose the case, but would "fight until hell freezes over and then skate it out on the ice."
The second is that international arbitration, in particular, presents a situation where money dictates justice. Many arbitration proceedings, included in investment treaties and complex contracts and the default forum for conflict, happen behind closed doors. Parties are predetermined and groups, like the indigenous people in Ecuador who live in the area polluted by Chevron, are not granted standing. Their case is never heard. There is no legal aid, no public assistance for those parties to the dispute who do not have sufficient funds to gain adequate representation (even the World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body has a few lawyers and resources set aside for least developed nations). The terms of the contract provide the only legal reference and there are no precedents, no right of appeal, no legal system in the traditional sense that provides checks and balances on individual arbitrators.
But these arbitration decisions have real consequences. If Chevron is permitted to continue its case under the bilateral investment treaty and receives a favorable ruling, Ecuador is bound by that ruling. Violating it leads to serious trade sanctions and damages - sanctions the country can't afford.
Meanwhile, the Amazon residents languish in serious peril. As Donzinger observes, the affected area looks like a dump site: "old Texaco barrels mired in hundreds of giant, unlined, open-air pits of oily sludge that leach their contents via pipes built by the oil company into nearby streams and rivers. Carcasses of cows and birds can often be seen floating in the oil muck at well sites built, operated, and closed -- but never cleaned -- by Texaco."
• Resources include Steven Donzinger with Laura Garr and Aaron Marr Page, "Rainforest Chernobyl Revisited. The Clash of Human Rights and BIT Investor Claims: Chevron's Abusive Litigation in Ecuador's Amazon." Human Rights Brief (2010), pp.8 - 14.
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The Minister was talking about The Bank of England when saying, "they don't want to be seen to be throttling small business".
"But The Bank of England is not small business."
"Well it would be if we throttled it."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC0Run0dtJU
Now although he may baulk at doing such a thing to Exxon, or Chevron, and he couldn't take this action for damage in Brazil, this is BP we're talking about here, BRITISH Petroleum.
This would not be a brave thing for him to do, and it would give BP the imperative to get the lead out.
Am I not looking in the right places?
The thing that I just don't understand is the unwillingness of the Big Energy companies to actually try to provide clean energy. If my house could be powered by BP or Chevron solar or wind power I would gladly write the check each month. If my car could run on a fuel cell that I buy from BP or Shell, I would be find with that. But we have a massive OIL Infrastructure and they seem to be dead set against having to retool it.
Home computers were half the cost of a new car when they came out, and now days you can buy a phone with more computing power. It will take time for alternative energies to become cheap but why are they so unwilling to provide us with better power sources?
i guess you are the exact demographic for the massive wilderness slaughter of the Chevron and BP Big Solar disasters coming down the pike (on your land, built with your money)! you must be excited that millions of acres of healthy, pristine Mojave ecosystem will be permanently and irretrievably destroyed for Chevron and BP profits in their (cough) "clean" energy boondoggles.
never mind that they increase global warming, will force dozens of species into extinction, will deplete all the scarce desert water, and cost us a FORTUNE, because Big Oil don't do things cheap.
Why would you not power your own house yourself? Why not get solar panels? If your state doesn't have good policies for clean point of use energy, why not fight for that instead of offering to write a check to Chevron so they can continue crushing our planet, millions of people and our economy under their heel?
Big business, corporate America has been scraped bare for all to see. Now finally after years of lies and false witness we see, America sees what is under the cloak. And the sight is more appalling than our human eyes can tolerate or our hearts can endure.
What now America ?
Accountability for corporate misdeeds = zero.
Justice in America = only for the rich
Justice in the world for small countries against corporate assault = zero.
At least stay at home moms can ride comfortably in their SUVs to Walmart, while their executive husbands attend church and pretend to be beacons of community leadership. It's all a Iie.
America has become cattle.
Viva La Liberte !!
The Germans and Europeans learned from WWII about the dangers of colossal corporate fortunes growing too rich and powerful and being used against the nation and the world. It didn't work out for them, and it won't work out for us. The Germans instead learned they had to constitutionally protect the nation from these Giant Thugs by protecting labor and advantaging the small medium sized business sector since it really is the real engine of growth in any economy. We will have to learn that lesson too. And then we'll have to push our Supreme Court to know we expect them to reflect change in our laws, just like we had to do go get them to get rid of Jim Crow and other travesties from our primitive past.
Ironically, those constitutional reforms were imposed on them by the US reconstruction after the War. So effectively, the US military industrialists imposed a constitution that would neuter their erstwhile historic competition from Germany. We took their top scientists to work for our unfettered military industrial companies. We then proceeded to populate Europe with our military and operate "leave behind" cells to work against trade unionists, socialists and communists in those "democracies".
But, it back fired as this article says how well things have worked out for their economy and people as a result of these fundamental changes.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/03/0082859