A global coalition of NGOs, human rights monitors, academics and analysts have joined Platform in sending a letter to the Board members of Royal Dutch Shell and Shell Nigeria which holds Shell to account for its role in recent human rights abuses in Nigeria. Below is a short extract from the letter:

Today the US Supreme Court hears Kiobel v Shell, a case that alleges Shell aided and abetted human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by the Nigerian military against the Ogoni people from 1992 onwards. Twenty years later, Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta continue to be linked to human rights violations committed by government forces and other armed groups, as well as result in extensive environmental devastation.

As the Nigerian government increases military spending and deploys more forces in the Delta and across Nigeria, there are clear risks that Shell will repeat the same mistakes, become complicit in human rights violations and fail to resolve some of the underlying issues of ongoing repression and pollution.

A recent report by Platform recommends that Shell and other stakeholders address the root causes of conflict by cleaning up pollution, de-militarising the Delta and providing adequate remedies to the individuals and communities affected. In this letter, we, the undersigned, hold Shell accountable for its conduct and its inaction on these issues; challenge Shell’s stated commitments to human rights and “high ethical standards” and emphasise the need for urgent action.

The letter is available to download or read below.

Three of the world’s biggest private oil companies face landmark legal actions this February. Here is a brief run down of the main cases, what they are about and why they matter.

1. US v BP

At the centre of the legal fallout from BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in April 2010 is a  complex civil trial which begins on 27 February. The trial will determine who is to blame, how much should be paid in damages and penalties and who should pay them. BP is one of a number of defendants, alongside Transocean (owner and operator of the rig) and Halliburton. There are over 120,000 claimants involved, from Gulf Coast fishers to the US government, and a massive 72 million pages of documents. The trial, heard before a Judge Carl Barbier without a jury, is expected to last all year.The future of the UK oil company could yet unravel in the legal vortex surrounding the Gulf of Mexico spill, with still more cases being added to this sizeable civil claim. According to the Guardian, charges of gross negligence over the accident, which claimed the lives of 11 workers, have not been ruled out. On 14 February, BP lost a separate case brought by share holders on the New York Stock Exchange. A District Court in Houston found that BP must face charges of fraud for misrepresenting its ability to address a major oil spill.

2. Kiobel v Shell

Filed in 2002, this case charges Shell with complicity in human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta between 1992 and 1995. Shell is accused of aiding and abetting the Nigerian military to commit violations a widespread and systematic campaign of torture, extra-judicial executions, prolonged arbitrary detention, and indiscriminate killings constituting crimes against humanity. Dr. Barinem Kiobel was among the 9 Ogoni activists executed by the Nigerian military regime on 10 November 1995, with the alleged collaboration of Shell. Esther Kiobel, Dr. Barinem’s widow, is one of the claimants. For more details and documents visit the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Wiwa v Shell an earlier lawsuit founded on the same allegations was settled out of court in June 2009 for $15.5 million (see the videos below).

On 28 February, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments over whether or not corporations can be held liable in the US for complicity in human rights abuses committed overseas. The Supreme Court’s decision will have major implications for corporate accountability. If successful, corporations will continue to face liability under the Alien Torts Statute in the US. But Kiobel would still have to be re-heard before any judgement on liability is made.

Complicity has continued to be a problem for Shell in Nigeria. Shell’s involvement in recent human rights abuses in the Niger Delta was revealed in Platform’s 2011 report, Counting the Cost.

3. Brazil v Chevron:

Brazillian prosecutors have filed a case for civil damages against Chevron and subcontractor Transocean over pollution offshore. On 7 November 2011, Chevron spilled an estimated 3,000 barrels of oil 230 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro after Transocean’s drilling work caused cracks in the sea floor. Chevron executives could face criminal charges and penalties of up to $11.6 billion.

It’s uncertain when the case may start, but the short term impacts have already proved significant. The Brazillian regulator, ANP, has suspended Chevron’s licence at the site of the spill at Frade field, causing a 15% decline in the company’s rate of oil extraction. The case against Chevron could establish important environmental restrictions for deepwater drillers seeking to exploit Brazil’s emerging oil and gas boom.

Watch the video by you and i films here:

The protest coincides with the 16th anniversary of the execution of writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists for their campaign against the environmental and social devastation caused by Shell and the Nigerian military regime. In response to peaceful protests by the minority Ogoni people in Nigeria, Shell collaborated with the military in a series of brutal crackdowns in the 1990s that claimed the lives of thousands. In October 2011, Platform released a new report on Shell’s role in recent human rights abuses perpetrated by the Nigerian military. The report also reveals how Shell has fuelled conflict through payments to armed gangs in the Delta region.

Events like the Shell Live Wire are used by the company to dissociate itself from human rights abuses and environmental devastation that results from its activities in Nigeria and elsewhere. The protest in London seeks to challenge Shell’s “social licence to operate”, thereby weakening its ability to commit abuses with impunity. The protest was organised by London Rising Tide and according to Indymedia encountered limited resistance from security:

Centrepoint security at first overstepped the mark, pushing people and trying to snatch the banner, but they retreated indoors and closed off the entrance when they realised they were being filmed, allowing the protest to continue right outside.

Hundreds of leaflets were handed out to interested passers-by, and police, who arrived after around 40 minutes, waited for instruction up the command chain before deciding to leave the protest alone.

A new report today published by Amnesty International and the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) has called on Shell to accept responsibility for the pollution caused by oil spills in the Niger Delta, and to begin by paying US$1 billion as an initial down-payment towards the clean-up.

The report highlights how Shell’s pollution has wrecked lives and livelihoods in the town of Bodo, Ogoni, which was home to 69,000 people. Shell had caused two major oil spills there in 2008-2009 which became  the subject of a UK lawsuit filed at the High Court in April. The company was forced to admit liability and could be made to pay up to $410 million in compensation and clean up the damage. Amnesty condemned the company’s response to the spills:

Shell – which recently reported profits of US$ 7.2bn billion for July-September 2011 – initially offered the Bodo community just 50 bags of rice, beans, sugar and tomatoes as relief for the disaster.

CEHRD’s Coordinator, Patrick Naagbanton said:

“The situation in Bodo is symptomatic of the wider situation in the Niger Delta oil industry. The authorities simply do not control the oil companies. Shell and other oil companies have the freedom to act – or fail to act – without fear of sanction. An independent, robust and well-resourced regulator is long overdue; otherwise even more people will continue to suffer at the hands of the oil companies.”

AI also acknowledged that the UK government’s proposed cuts to the legal aid budget could make the UK courts inaccessible to the victims of corporate human rights abuses, such as Shell’s in Nigeria:

This report reinforces the need for victims of the overseas operations of UK companies to have access to justice in the UK. This is now under threat because of provisions in the Government’s Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders that would change the balance of costs against complainants bringing cases such as Bodo to the UK courts, and in favour of the multinational corporations defending such cases. If the Bill passes, such cases would no longer be viable.

Last night, CBC Radio, a national station in Canada broadcast an interview with Ben Amunwa, author of Platform’s new report, Counting the Cost, on Shell’s human rights abuses in Nigeria.

Listen to more Platform podcasts here.

Counting the Cost implicates Shell in cases of serious violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region from 2000 to 2010. The report uncovers how Shell’s routine payments to armed militants exacerbated conflicts, in one case leading to the destruction of Rumuekpe town where it is estimated that at least 60 people were killed. According to Platform’s report, Shell continues to rely on Nigerian government forces who have perpetrated systematic human rights abuses against local residents, including unlawful killings, torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. A summary of the report is available here.

Royal Dutch Shell has been sued so many times over its conduct in Nigeria that its cases offer a laboratory experiment for human rights litigation.

After thirteen years of arduous U.S. alien tort litigation, Wiwa v. Shell resulted in a piddling $15.5 million settlement in 2009. Kiobel v. Shell has done even worse. Nearly a decade after the case was filed, it has succeeded only in abolishing the corporate alien tort within the Second Circuit, and if the U.S. Supreme Court accepts cert, it may do the same nationwide.

Now comes the “Bodo” case, which emerged from obscurity three weeks ago. On August 3, four months after farmers and fishermen from the village of Bodo filed a common law complaint in London high court, Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary admitted liability for a pair of oil spills in return for the parent company’s dismissal from the suit. The Financial Times trumpeted the potential for a payout of over $400 million, although the Shell Petroleum Development Company called this number “massively in excess of the true position.”

As Goldhaber makes clear, the Bodo case is far from over.

the Bodo deal was not a one-sided plaintiffs victory. Corporate formalities matter intensely to both Shell and its human rights critics. As Dutch plaintiffs lawyer Liesbeth Zevgeld has put it, “Shell headquarters believes it is untouchable, but we believe it is legally responsible for damage caused in Nigeria.”  More generally, parental liability for the conduct of foreign subsidiaries has been called the leading legal question in European business human rights. With Royal Dutch’s dismissal from the Bodo suit, that battle shifts to the impending Dutch trial of Oguru v. Shell, which seeks the cleanup of three oil spills elsewhere in the Niger delta. The stakes may be somewhat lower in the Netherlands, because Dutch courts lack the sort of class action rules that let U.K. lawyers aggregate 69,000 villagers’ claims for loss of livelihood.

Read the full article here.

I challenge anyone to find a more cynical example of corporate sponsorship than this one.

(Thanks to @Adammaanit in Brighton and @MsVanessaMurray in Australia for bringing it to our attention).

In the same week that Shell was condemned by the UN for its devastating oil spills in Ogoni, and admitted liability for 2 massive spills in Bodo village in the Niger Delta, the company announced that its sponsorship of an oil spill clean up competition in the US:

Shell has announced that it is a supporting partner of the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge, a global competition to develop the most effective oil spill cleanup equipment.

10 teams from Northern Europe and the United States will compete for prize money, with Shell’s Peter Velez, global emergency response manager, judging the scores.

The team with the highest oil recovery rate and highest oil recovery efficiency will get $1m first prize; second place will get $300k and third place $100k.

So while the Ogoni people continue drink water contaminated with hydrocarbons 1,000 times higher than the legal limit, and have their land and fisheries turned into toxic dump, they can at least rest in the knowledge that Shell cares far more about its image than it does about their suffering.

If you feel it, tweet it:

“Shame on @Shell for decades of doing nothing to clean Ogoni oil spills.”

Taken together, the [UNEP] report and admission of responsibility by Shell are powerful reminders of the crippling effect the oil industry continues to have on the Delta’s economy and environment, particularly on local communities that rely on the land and water for their survival.

The impoverished people from these Delta communities have borne the brunt of devastating, toxic pollution since drilling began there in the 1950s. Many Ogoni have never lived without contaminated soil and water, and although Shell stopped producing oil from Ogoni as a result of popular opposition in 1993, they still pump oil across Ogoniland through the Trans-Niger pipeline.

Other suits have been brought against Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC in Nigeria, the Netherlands, and the United States for environmental harms and human rights abuses related to the company’s oil operations in the Niger Delta. These claims have covered issues ranging from continued gas flaring (a leading emitter of greenhouse gases that contributes to acid rain and a practice that is illegal under Nigerian law), to the destruction of the delicate ecology of the Delta, to complicity in murder, torture and other serious harms. ERI was involved in a case in U.S. federal court over Shell’s complicity in the killings, torture and severe abuses committed by the Nigerian military against individual Ogoni in the early 1990s. That case was only settled in 2009 when Shell agreed to pay $15.5 million, which allowed for the creation of a trust for the Ogoni people and compensation for the victims in the case and their surviving relatives.

For more background on the Wiwa v Shell case, check out this report by Al-Jazeera, New York.