By Sam Olukoya
ABUJA, Jun 8 2014 (IPS)

Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases. A significant percentage of this pollution takes place in the Niger Delta region thanks to the existence of multination oil companies and the activities of hundreds of illegal refineries where local people process stolen crude oil.

For a country that is at the receiving end of the environmental impact of climate change, there is a growing sense that this West African country should curb its emission of greenhouse gases. Private initiatives and effective legislation are likely to play crucial roles in Nigeria’s drive to curbing its emissions.

Time for Nigeria to Curb its Own Emissions from IPS News on Vimeo.

The U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit against the Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum Company brought by alleged human rights victims.

The ruling, which was handed down Wednesday, is seen as a serious setback for the Ogoni community in the Niger Delta, who alleged gross human rights abuses during the mid-1990s by the military government in power at the time."What we have here are allegations of horrific acts of violence, including torture, facilitated by large multinational corporations in Nigeria, that essentially will go unanswered for." -- HRF's Raha Wala

In addition, the decision essentially cuts off the U.S. courts system from those attempting to redress wrongs allegedly committed by multinational companies, particularly in developing countries.

In the widely watched Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum case, the victims had accused the oil company of being complicit in the crimes against them, including torture, extrajudicial killings, rape and crimes against humanity.

Yet the justices, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, found that Shell’s connection to the United States was too tenuous, despite the fact that it does business in the country, and hence could not be sued under U.S. law. Critics say this is precisely what the U.S. law in question, known as the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), was created to do.

“The ruling today is a real tragedy,” Raha Wala, senior council at Human Rights First, a Washington-based advocacy group, told IPS immediately after the decision.

“It means that the doors to justice will be shut for a large category of foreign individuals who really have nowhere else to turn to receive redress for international human rights issues including torture and extrajudicial killings. I think the Supreme Court really missed the mark today with its ruling.”

In the case, the plaintiffs alleged that the Ogoni had protested against widespread environmental destruction and land degradation resulting from oil exploration in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta. In response, they said, throughout 1993 and 1994 the Nigerian military systematically targeted Ogoni villages in terror campaigns of looting, rape murder and property destruction.

These attacks were said to have culminated in the executions of a group of people known as the Ogoni Nine, environmentalists who included the renowned playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa. The nine were hanged following a military tribunal widely condemned as illegitimate.

The Ogoni had hoped to find justice in U.S. courts by filing a civil action against Royal Dutch Shell under the Alien Tort Statute. For decades, the statute has served as a tool for holding individuals, corporations and governments accountable for international human rights violations.

Yet Tuesday’s ruling, coming after a decade-long fight, could now irreparably weaken the statute. (A full history of the case can be found here.)

“Essentially what the court said is that the ATS – which is designed to allow lawsuits for violations of both the laws of nations and international law – no longer applies extra-territorially,” Wala said.

“So what we have here are allegations of horrific acts of violence, including torture, facilitated by large multinational corporations in Nigeria, that essentially will go unanswered for because the Supreme Court construed this law very narrowly.”

Indeed, Wala says Wednesday’s decision goes against decades of use of the ATS.

“The Supreme Court has interpreted this law in a way that has been inconsistent with the last 30 years of legal precedent,” she said. “During that time, the ATS has been used repeatedly to bring human rights cases into federal courts. Today’s decision is really a disservice to victims of human rights violations.”

State courts open

The decision will almost certainly have a profound effect on the global effort to give redress to victims of corporate-linked human rights abuses. Some are also worried that it will now make it more difficult to deny safe havens to alleged torturers and war criminals.

While the case is viewed as a departure from a trend toward greater accountability for serious human rights violations, Marco Simons, the legal director for Earth Rights International, a Washington advocacy group, says that the door to the ATS has not yet been closed.

“From now on, if a foreign multinational corporation has participated in crimes against humanity in another country, you can’t sue them in the U.S. simply because they have a presence in the U.S.,” he told IPS.

“It’s not enough that the defendant is a corporation doing business in the U.S. – now there needs to be some greater connection to the United States than that.”

At the same time, he notes, Wednesday’s decision only applies to federal courts. Further, and importantly, the justices did not decide that corporations are immune from the ATS, as Shell’s lawyers had suggested.

“So, foreign corporations doing business in the U.S. can still be sued under the ATS for the crimes they have committed around the world, but only at the state court level,” he explained.

“Beyond this, we don’t really know what additional connection might be required. It could mean that only a case against a U.S. corporation can be tried, or maybe the case would have to require some company involvement within the United States, such as corporate decision-making being made here.”

He says this issue will be argued in court for some time to come.

Waibite Amazi, a fisherman in Nigeria's troubled oil-rich delta region, spreads out his net outside his homestead, Nigeria. Farming and fishing is the main source of livelihood for the impoverished, rural population here. Courtesy: Dulue Mbachu/IRIN

By Toye Olori
LAGOS, Nigeria, Jan 31 2013 (IPS)

The decision by The Hague over Shell’s liability for polluting in the Niger Delta shows that justice is possible – but it is extremely hard to achieve if you are taking on a massive multinational, says Amnesty International’s Africa programme director Audrey Gaughran.

While The Hague dismissed most of the landmark case brought by the four Nigerian farmers and environmental pressure group, Friends of the Earth, against a subsidiary of international oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, the judges ordered Shell Nigeria to compensate one farmer for breach of duty of care.

Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company, is the largest oil and gas company in Nigeria, Africa’s top energy producer, which produces more than one million barrels of oil per day.

The Nigerian farmers and Friends of the Earth filed the suit in 2008 in The Hague, where Shell has its joint global headquarters, seeking unspecified reparations for lost income from contaminated land and waterways in the petroleum-rich Niger Delta.

One of the farmers, Friday Alfred Akpan, from Ikot Ada Udo village, had complained that the oil leakage in his community had destroyed his 47 fishponds. He said the destruction of the ponds had resulted in his inability to fend for his family.

The pollution was a result of oil spills in 2004, 2005 and 2007, the complainants said.

The Niger Delta, which accounts for 50 percent of this West African nation’s oil exports, has about 31 million inhabitants. Farming and fishing is the main source of livelihood for the impoverished, rural population here.

According to AFP, the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth welcomed the one compensation order but was stunned to have lost the other cases.

“Clearly it’s good news that one of the plaintiffs in this case managed to clamber over all the obstacles to something approaching justice,” Gaughran told IPS from Lagos on Wednesday, Jan. 30.

“Given the really serious difficulties of bringing these cases at all, the significance of today’s ruling is that one plaintiff prevailed and will get damages.

“However, the fact that the other plaintiffs’ claims were dismissed underscores the very serious obstacles people from the Niger Delta face in accessing justice when their lives have been destroyed by oil pollution.

“It is clear that governments need to look at the formidable obstacles claimants face, especially when taking massive oil companies to court,” he said.

Wale Fapohunda, a commissioner with the National Human Rights Commission in Lagos, told IPS that the fact that the case was filed in The Hague showed a lack of faith in the Nigerian judicial system which is plagued by corruption.

“We need to focus and ensure that our own justice system is able to respond to human rights violations, particularly when they are committed by multinationals against citizens,” said Fapohunda, who is also a managing partner of the Legal Resources Consortium and the former secretary of the Presidential Commission on the Reform of the Administration of Justice in Nigeria.

“The trend now is that because victims in the region are often intimidated by the multinationals who believe they are close to our justice system, affected persons in the region will continue to find justice outside our shores, and that is bad for us,” said Fapohunda, who is also on the international advisory board of Penal Reform International.

Lawrence Quaker of Human Rights Law Services, Lagos, said the case as a good example of how Nigerians are beginning seek international justice amid the failure of the country’s judiciary.

“The filing of the case in The Hague shows that some people are losing confidence in the Nigerian judiciary and are going outside to seek redress. An example is the conviction of former Delta State Governor James Ibori in the United Kingdom.” In April, Ibori was convicted of fraud for allegedly stealing almost 77 million dollars intended for Nigeria’s poor. Prior to the case, Ibori had been tried in Nigeria on the same charges and had been found not guilty.

“It shows that the judiciary abroad is not biased and we can take cases against companies to their motherland for adjudication and get a fair hearing,” Quaker told IPS.

Shell hailed the judgment as a victory. Castelain was quoted by AFP as saying: “We are very pleased by the ruling of the court today. It’s clear that both the parent company, Royal Dutch Shell, as well as the local venture … has been proven right.”