Justice May Be Nigh in Ecuador's Case Against Chevron
Over the past few years, I’ve written several articles calling out Chevron’s nauseating behavior in defiling the rain forests and people of Ecuador. As I’m fond of saying, there are over 200,000 groups around the world whose mission and purpose is environmental and social justice.
Occasionally, I am asked why I conflate environmental and social issues. The answer is complex, but here’s a story that illustrates my point nicely. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/09/04/after-canadian-court-ruling-has-law-finally-caught-chevron
For many years, the people of Ecuador have been working to force oil giant Chevron to pay for the cleanup of the 17 million gallons of toxic waste water and 18 million gallons of crude that they deliberately dumped into the country’s rainforests, and to make amends for the thousands of cases of cancer and other dread diseases that this abomination caused. A few years ago, high court in Ecuador ruled that Chevron must pay $9.5 billion in damages, a decision that has been upheld in appellate courts on several occasions since. Yet Chevron has been staunchly refusing to comply with the order, using a wide variety of obstructionist legal tactics.
It now appears that these legal maneuvers have run aground. According to this story, the Supreme Court of Canada just yesterday ruled that the people of Ecuador can sue Chevron in Ontario in an effort to attach the oil giant’s assets in Canada.
I had previously written I was certain that I would have long since left this planet before Chevron was forced to comply with the orders of the international courts in this regard. It now appears that I was wrong, and that justice is right around the corner.