Chevron, formerly Texaco, has been sued over massive alleged contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon. ERI has participated as an amicus at several stages of this litigation.
The alleged environmental destruction of the Ecuadorian Amazon has affected tens of thousands of people. The victims of Texaco’s abuses sought recourse in a consolidated lawsuit, Jota, et al and Aguinda, et al v. Texaco, filed, in part, under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs asserted that Texaco’s actions violated international law. The Aguinda plaintiffs alleged that, from 1972-1992, Texaco released massive quantities of highly toxic petroleum wastes into waters people used for bathing, fishing, drinking, and cooking, and that Texaco sprayed these wastes onto local roads. In addition, the plaintiffs claimed that Texaco's actions have had devastating impacts on their ability to maintain their traditional cultures. The Jota plaintiffs alleged that Texaco's pollution crossed the border causing thousands of persons similar injuries in an adjoining region of Peru.
In 2001, the district court dismissed the action based on forum non conveniens holding that litigation should proceed in Ecuador. In conducting its forum non conveniens analysis, the district court concluded that plaintiffs would be unlikely to demonstrate that Texaco's acts are international torts actionable under the ATS.
Plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. ERI submitted an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs. In the brief, ERI asserts that environmental harms of the magnitude alleged by plaintiffs violate international law and that the court's failure to give weight to the U.S. interests in hearing this case expressed in the ATS was legal error.
In an unfortunate decision, issued on August 16, 2002, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision to dismiss the case. The Court of Appeals, however, did not adopt the district court’s finding that plaintiffs would be unlikely to state a claim for a violation of international law. Rather, the Court held that it was unnecessary to consider that issue, because other public and private interest factors would require dismissal even if the ATS expresses a strong U.S. policy interest in hearing this case. Given the Court of Appeals’ conclusion, the district court’s finding that massive environmental damage of the kind alleged is unlikely to be actionable under the ATS was dicta.
ERI is disappointed that the Court of Appeals denied Texaco’s victims their day in court in Texaco’s home town. Moreover, ERI believes that the Court of Appeals did not give proper weight to the strong U.S. policy interest in providing a forum for the adjudication of international law violations under the ATS.
Following the dismissal of the U.S. litigation, the plaintiffs re-filed their case against Chevron (which had acquired Texaco) in Lago Agrio, Ecuador. In 2011, the Ecuadorian court granted judgment to the plaintiffs inAguinda v. Chevron, ordering Chevron to pay over $18 billion to remediate the environmental damage.
Chevron had already embarked on strategies to avoid paying this judgment. In September 2009, Chevron initiated an international investment arbitration against Ecuador, arguing that its rights as a foreign investor were being violated by its treatment in the Ecuadorian courts. On behalf of two NGOs, ERI sought to file anamicus brief in the arbitration tribunal, arguing that it was not appropriate for the tribunal to hear the case. Unfortunately, the tribunal rejected ERI's filing.
In 2011, Chevron filed a lawsuit, Chevron v. Donziger, against the Ecuadorian plaintiffs and their counsel in New York, arguing that they had committed fraud and racketeering in the Lago Agrio litigation in an effort to pressure Chevron into settlement, and seeking an injunction that would prevent the Ecuadorians from enforcing the Lago Agrio judgment anywhere in the world. The district court issued a preliminary injunction in March, and the plaintiffs immediately appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
In June 2011, ERI filed an amicus brief with the Second Circuit, arguing that since Chevron (then Texaco) had originally argued that the case should be dismissed to Ecuador, and had defended the adequacy of the Ecuadorian judicial system, it should not now be able to attack that judicial system in order to avoid enforcement of a judgment. Several other amicus briefs were filed as well, including one filed by the Ecuadorian government.
In September 2011, the Second Circuit dissolved the injunction without an opinion explaining its reasons, but noted that one would be forthcoming. In January, 2012, an Ecuadorean appellate court upheld the judgment against Chevron. Later that month, the Second Circuit issued its opinion, dismissing Chevron’s claim for an injunction because the New York law upon which Chevron relied did not provide the authority to issue the world-wide injunction Chevron seeks.
More information about the Chevron/Ecuador litigation may be found on the website of the plaintiffs and supporting organizations, http://chevrontoxico.com/.
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ERI staff, February 2010
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