Chevron Continues to Evade Responsibilities in Equador
Posted by at Feb 12th, 2010 in Activism
Filed under: Movies, TV and Books , Polit-eco , Activism
After 17 years of litigation, the $27 billion environmental law suit brought against Chevron by the people of Ecuador seems near a decision, and not in the energy giant’s favor.
That’s making Chevron panicky enough to say or do almost anything to try to get out of paying the huge fine , including making assertions against the Ecuadorian court system, the judge, and most recently that the court-appointed subject matter expert, is biased. This is despite the fact that Chevron insisted that the case be tried in Ecuador in the first place.
Back in October I reviewed the film “CRUDE “, a documentary about the environmental disaster and lawsuit. I was also lucky enough to sit down for an interview with the director, Joe Berlinger , and hear first hand from him about the Rhode Island-sized swath of Ecuador that was catastrophically polluted by oil exploration and drilling done between 1972 and 1990 by Texaco, which is now owned by Chevron.
The case against Texaco seems crystal clear when you watch ” CRUDE “, which believe it or not, is fairly neutral and even-handed. The Chevron executives do an excellent job of digging their own graves, coming across as bad liars with an utter lack of morals.
Even Chevron admits the culpability of Texaco, but in the legal equivalent of throwing sand in the eyes of your opponent, they continue to attack the validity of the process. In this latest salvo, they’ve also declared that they won’t pay any fine levied by the Ecuadorian government, and that they want to bring in an international arbitrator.
That would be just fine with Steven Donziger, the American legal advisor to the Ecuadorians, who has the tenacity of a terrier. He’s quoted in the Huffington Post, saying “They’re losing the case based on the evidence, so they’re trying to fabricate issues to try to taint the image of the trial.” And he’s ready to have it tried in every country where Chevron has a presence.
environmental activists and energy companies alike will continue to watch the progress of this case, which will certainly be held up as a precedent for all future environment responsibility suits. To learn more, put “CRUDE” on your Netflix! Chevron Continues to Evade Responsibilities in Equador originally appeared on Green Daily on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
More here: Chevron Continues to Evade Responsibilities in Equador
- environmentally%20conscious%2C%20we%26%238217%3Bre%20all%20paying%20more%20attention%20to%20our%20carbon%20footprint.%20Measuring%20carbon%20footprints%20is%20complicated%20%26%238212&submitCategory=science&submitAssetType=text” title=”Yahoo! Buzz”>
Related Posts
Related Posts
Tags: chevron, documentary, ecuador
Post a Comment