Thirteen years ago today, Indigenous peoples and other Amazonian inhabitants made climate justice history in Ecuador when, after 18 years of legal battles, they won a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron Corporation.
The landmark case was first filed in 1993, and it was one of the first times ever that affected communities took on an oil company and won a court judgment of this type. Chevron was found guilty in the court of its choosing and based largely on its own evidence for having deliberately discharged over 16 billion gallons of cancer-causing toxic waste into the northern Ecuadorian Amazon, leaving almost 1,000 pools of waste adding up to an area the size of the island of Manhattan. Some 30,000 Ecuadorians were affected (many more since then), and it is widely regarded as one of the worst oil-related environmental disasters in history.
While today is a historic day because of that unprecedented victory, the issue itself is not “history.” First, because the waste remains there to this day, continuously poisoning the waterways and drinking and bathing water of everyone who lives there. And secondly, because Chevron has never paid a single penny towards the clean-up and remains “on the run” and under pursuit of a growing global movement demanding justice for Ecuador.
What has happened since the judgment
In the 13 years since the judgment, Chevron made over $200 billion in profit from its continued destruction of our global climate – 21 times the amount it owes. Yet it famously said it would never pay to clean up Ecuador and would “fight until hell freezes over, and then fight it out on the ice.” Instead, its executives O’Reilly, Watson, and now Wirth have spent over $2 billion to pay lawyers and PR firms to attack their victims and their law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, dubbed “Fossil Fuel Mob Lawyers” have persecuted the lawyers who helped the Ecuadorians – namely Steven Donziger, and slandered anyone who stood up for the Ecuadorian communities calling them “co-conspirators” in a fraud against the oil giant.
Largely exposed and dismissed by much of the global community as a Chevron fraud, its RICO SLAPP suit has instead served as a rallying cry against corporate attacks on environmental and human rights activists in the U.S. The UN, EU, members of the European Parliament and U.S. Congress, and the world’s largest environmental and human rights organizations have called it out as such.
What is happening now in the fight for justice
Yes, Chevron has staved off paying the judgment thus far, but the net is tightening. This anniversary is important because one of Chevron’s underhanded attempts to escape justice is posing an imminent threat. Chevron is using its big oil influence to pressure Ecuador into ignoring the verdict from its own court, assume the company’s liability, and pass the bill to the country’s taxpayers. And Ecuador’s right-wing government with historic Chevron ties may be listening.
Years ago, while it pursued its fraudulent RICO SLAPP attack in U.S. courts, Chevron also filed a complaint under a bi-lateral trade agreement between the U.S. and Ecuador, and it won an award in their favor. Contrary to Chevron’s lies, this international arbitration process is not a court system but a mechanism to allow corporations to sue and put pressure on governments. That is why the Union of People Affected by Chevron-Texaco (UDAPT) recently went to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights to ask that their efforts to seek justice from Chevron be protected from undue interference by the Ecuadorian government. The government has a choice: defend its own judgment offering justice to its citizens, or give in to corporate pressure.
“Today is a bittersweet day for us. Our historic legal victory is not enough if we don’t get the justice we urgently need and deserve,” said Donald Moncayo, President of UDAPT. “Chevron is a climate justice criminal, on the run from the law, and has to be held to account. Time is running out. We need a clean-up, health care, and clean water. This company destroyed the Amazon, polluted the people, went to trial, and was found guilty, but it still hasn’t cleaned up or paid up. We need our government to stand up for us. And we need the world to stand with us, to make sure Chevron is not above the law – in Ecuador, or anywhere where this company operates.”
What is to come
Today, Ecuador stands on the precipice in many ways. Recent violence and internal turmoil has given President Daniel Noboa an excuse to continue drilling major oil fields inside Yasuní National Park – despite the recent referendum where a clear majority of the entire population of Ecuador loudly demanded it be kept free of extraction. That oil, like much of the oil already being pumped out of Ecuador, is destined to be refined by none other than Chevron in California. Every single day Chevron’s debt remains unpaid, and to add insult to injury, it continues to add to the $200 billion in profit at the expense of people and the planet. It must be stopped.
This May, affected communities in several countries have declared as “Anti-Chevron Month.” Chevron has polluted, poisoned, and attacked frontline communities around the globe as its business model, prompting the release of a report in 2021 entitled “Chevron’s Global Destruction” which details over $50 billion it owes to communities and nations worldwide for its human rights and environmental crimes. Chevron, recognized as a global corporate criminal, is even being sued by the state of California for environmental violations and contributing to climate change, posing significant risks to public health and the environment.
Thirteen years later, Chevron may not have been forced to pay, but it is nowhere near being let off the hook. We will not forget nor stop the pursuit.
