Steven Donziger, an American environmental attorney, went after Chevron. His focus was the Lago Agrio oil field case or the “Amazon Chernobyl.”
‘He represented over 30,000 farmers and indigenous Ecuadorians in a case against Chevron related to environmental damage and health effects caused by oil drilling. The Ecuadorian courts awarded the plaintiffs $9.5 billion in damages, which led Chevron to withdraw its assets from Ecuador and launch legal action against Donziger in the US.
In 2011, Chevron filed a RICO suit against Donziger in New York City. The case was heard by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who determined that the ruling of the Ecuadorian courts could not be enforced in the US because it was procured by fraud, bribery, and racketeering activities. As a result of this case, Donziger was disbarred from practicing law in New York in 2018.
After having been under house arrest since August 2019 awaiting trial on charges of criminal contempt of court, which arose during his appeal against Kaplan’s RICO decision, in July 2021 US district judge Loretta Preska found him guilty; he is now facing the possibility of a 6-month jail sentence. While under house arrest, in 2020 twenty-nine Nobel laureates described the actions taken by Chevron against Donziger as “judicial harassment” and human rights campaigners have described Chevron’s actions as an example of a strategic lawsuit against public participation. In April 2021, six members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus demanded that the Department of Justice review Donziger’s case. In September 2021, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ruled that the pre-trial detention imposed on Donziger was illegal and called for his release.’
Steven was sentenced to prison today on contempt charges. It is unprecedented.
Oil companies own us. The level of corruption in our judicial and political systems is deeply depressing. We will drive our gas guzzling American trucks and Humvees into extinction, and take the rest of the world with us.