In 2011, Ecuador’s courts rendered a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies.
The Ecuadorian plaintiffs persuaded the Ecuadorian court that, from 1964 to 1992, Texaco, which was later purchased by Chevron, dumped polluted wastewater into open pits across vast swaths of Lago Agrio in the Ecuadorian jungle, contaminating the water used by locals. Locals call the area the ‘Amazon Chernobyl’.
On September 7, 2018, a non-public, arbitral tribunal staffed by corporate lawyers found that Ecuador violated a treaty with the United States by allowing its court system to issue this historic judgment.
For The Real News, I discuss the ruling of this tribunal with Steven Donziger, an American lawyer who has represented the Ecuadorean plaintiffs for two decades in one of the most contentious legal battles of the modern era.
My conversation with Mr. Donziger can be watched and heard here:
https://therealnews.com/stories/chevron-arbitration-ruling-against-ecuador-completely-off-base.
