Amazon Watch expresses outrage at reports that the government of President Daniel Noboa has been directed and apparently intends to pay US $220 million to Chevron to honor an illegitimate Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) arbitration ruling.
Chevron has admitted in internal documents that it deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon as a cost-saving measure. Ecuador’s courts, including the Constitutional Court, found Chevron guilty of one of the worst oil-related environmental crimes in history, issuing a $9.5 billion judgment in 2013 to clean up the contamination and provide relief for affected Indigenous and campesino communities. By law, any Chevron assets in Ecuador should immediately be turned over to these communities to begin satisfying the debt Chevron owes.
Instead of complying, Chevron abandoned Ecuador, refused to pay, and turned to the ISDS system – a fundamentally undemocratic mechanism that allows corporations to bypass domestic courts, entirely exclude the affected communities, and use secretive arbitration panels stacked in their favor. Chevron’s case relied on false testimony from a bribed witness and fabricated evidence. The Ecuadorian judgment remains legitimate and enforceable and is in no way invalidated by the Arbitration Panel’s award.
This entire process has been denounced worldwide as an abuse of law and an assault on the sovereignty of Ecuador and the rights of its people. It sets a dangerous precedent that corporations can poison communities, evade justice, and then profit from secret trade tribunals. Ecuadorians themselves reject Ecuador’s participation in the flawed ISDS system. In 2024, a proposal to to include international arbitration mechanisms to resolve disputes was voted down by 64.8% of the Ecuadorian population. It is notable that as flawed as this process has been, the ISDS award was vastly lower than the US $3 billion Chevron sought.
Statement from Paul Paz y Miño, Amazon Watch Deputy Director:
“Let’s be clear: this illegitimate arbitration process is nothing more than Chevron abusing the law to escape accountability for one of the worst oil disasters in history. Ecuador’s courts ruled correctly and based largely on Chevron’s own evidence, that Chevron deliberately poisoned Indigenous and rural communities, leaving behind a mass cancer zone in the Amazon. Adding insult to injury, the idea that Ecuador’s people should now pay a U.S. oil company that admitted to deliberate pollution is the epitome of environmental racism. Noboa must not honor this ISDS award, and the international community must stand behind the victims of Chevron’s crimes and demand that the company clean up Ecuador once and for all.
“Amazon Watch stands with the affected Indigenous peoples and communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon. We urge President Noboa to reject this illegitimate award, disclose any negotiations with Chevron, and enforce Ecuadorian law by ensuring Chevron pays its debt to those it poisoned.”
Statement by the Union of Peoples Affected by Chevron-Texaco:
“Ecuador’s State Prosecutor’s Office celebrated the reduction of the ISDS award for Chevron to $220 million as if it was a success and an economic achievement. The reality is it is a defeat for justice. For 32 years, UDAPT has documented pollution, environmental crime, and lives broken by Chevron, proving what should be obvious: communities have not recovered, health has not been restored, clean water has not returned, and the territories that sustain life remain contaminated. A debt is not owed to Chevron. A debt is owed to the Amazonian families still waiting for truth, justice, and full reparation.”
Statement from human rights lawyer Steven Donziger:
“The decision by a so-called private corporate arbitration panel that claims to absolve Chevron of its massive pollution liability in Ecuador has no legitimacy and does not affect the historic $9.5 billion damages judgment won by Amazonian communities. That judgment still stands as the definitive public court ruling in the case. The private arbitral panel has no authority over the six public appellate courts, including the Supreme Courts of Ecuador and Canada, that issued unanimous decisions against Chevron and confirmed the extensive evidence that the company devastated local communities by deliberately dumping billions of gallons of cancer-causing oil waste into rivers and streams used by thousands of people for drinking, bathing, and fishing.
“I also strongly condemn President Daniel Noboa for his plans to betray his own people by agreeing to send $220 million from the public treasury to Chevron, a company that owes Ecuador billions under multiple court orders for poisoning vulnerable Indigenous peoples with toxic oil waste. Noboa would effectively grant Chevron a taxpayer-funded bailout financed by the same citizens who remain victims of the company’s pollution. This would be an outrageous dereliction of duty and a violation of his oath of office, warranting removal.“
