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earthrights international
US Jury Holds Chiquita Liable for Colombian Death Squad's Murder of Banana Workers
"The verdict does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed," said one attorney, "but it sets the record straight and places accountability for funding terrorism where it belongs: at Chiquita's doorstep."
Jun 11, 2024
In what case litigants are calling the first time an American jury has held a U.S. corporation legally liable for atrocities abroad, federal jurors in Florida on Monday found that Chiquita Brands International financed a Colombian paramilitary death squad that murdered, tortured, and terrorized workers in a bid to crush labor unrest in the 1990s and 2000s.
The federal jury in West Palm Beach, Florida found the banana giant responsible for funding the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and awarded eight families whose members were murdered by the right-wing paramilitary group $38.3 million in damages.
EarthRights International, which first filed the case—Doe v. Chiquita—in 2007,
called the verdict "a milestone for justice."
"The jury's decision reaffirms what we have long asserted: Chiquita knowingly financed the AUC, a designated terrorist organization, in pursuit of profit, despite the AUC's egregious human rights abuses," the group said.
"By providing over $1.7 million in illegal funding to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, Chiquita contributed to untold suffering and loss in the Colombian regions of Urabá and Magdalena, including the brutal murders of innocent civilians," EarthRights added. "This historic verdict also means some of the victims and families who suffered as a direct result of Chiquita's actions will finally be compensated."
One of the plaintiffs in the case called the verdict the "triumph of a process that has been going on for almost 17 years, for all of us who have suffered so much during these years."
Plaintiffs' attorney Agnieszka Fryszman said that "the verdict does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed, but it sets the record straight and places accountability for funding terrorism where it belongs: at Chiquita's doorstep."
The U.S. labor reporting site More Perfect Union called the verdict "an unprecedented win against corporate violence, which could [be] the first of many."
A Chiquita spokesperson told Fruitnet that the company plans to appeal the verdict.
The AUC was formed in 1997 via the union of right-wing paramilitary groups battling leftist guerrillas—mainly the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN)—in the South American nation's civil war. Closely linked to Colombia's U.S.-backed military, the AUC—some of whose members were trained by Israelis—was designated a terrorist organization in 2001 by the U.S. State Department, which cited its "massacres, kidnappings of civilians, and participation in the trafficking of narcotics."
In 2007, Chiquita pleaded guilty in federal court to funding the AUC and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. The company admitted to paying the AUC via its wholly owned Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, which was also its most profitable operation. Chiquita recorded these transactions as "security payments" or payments for "security" or "security services" in its corporate records.
Chiquita said that it began making the payments after Carlos Castaño, who led the AUC at the time, implied that Banadex's employees and property could be harmed. However, despite—critics say because of—the payments, AUC members brutally targeted Banadex workers in what victims and their advocates say was an effort to suppress labor unrest.
An earlier lawsuit described the fate of one victim, who is identified by the pseudonym "Pablo Pérez":
In the early morning hours of November 1, 1997, a group of heavily armed paramilitaries dressed in camouflaged uniforms stormed Pablo Pérez's home in the village of Guacamayal, in the banana zone of Magdalena, while he was sleeping. The paramilitaries broke down the door to the home, found and seized him, tied him up, and forced him to accompany them at gunpoint, beating him as they kidnapped him. His corpse was found the following morning with signs of torture and two gunshots, one to the head and one to the body.
According to plaintiffs in that case, in 2001 a ship carrying 3,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 5 million rounds of ammunition left Nicaragua and, instead of heading to its declared destination in Panama, dropped off the arms at a Banadex-run port in Turbo, Colombia. Castaño called the procurement "the greatest achievement by the AUC so far."
The earlier lawsuit states that in addition to using the money provided by Chiquita to "drive the leftist guerrillas out of the Santa Marta and Uraba banana-growing regions," AUC militants would "resolve complaints and problems with banana workers and labor unions."
"Among other things, when individual banana workers became 'security problems,' Chiquita notified the AUC, which responded to the company's instructions by executing the individual," the document states. "According to AUC leaders, a large number of people were executed on Chiquita's instructions in the Santa Marta region."
Chiquita has a long history of deadly repression against workers. Formerly the United Fruit Company (UFC)—the infamous "Octopus"—the New Orleans-based behemoth monopolized land and markets throughout Latin America in the 20th century. Through slick marketing campaigns, UFC introduced the previously unknown banana to consumers in North America and beyond. The company propped up so-called "banana republics"—extraction economies characterized by state repression, severely stratified social classes, and compliant local plutocracies—throughout the region.
UFC stopped at nothing, including participation in U.S.-backed coups, to protect its property and profits. By the 1930s, UFC controlled around 90% of the U.S. banana import business. It owned or controlled nearly half of Guatemala's land in the 1940s.
In Colombia, where UFC workers earned the approximate equivalent of $1 per month, UFC refused to negotiate with workers who went on strike in 1928 in Ciénaga, near Santa Marta. U.S. and UFC officials falsely portrayed the strike as communist subversion and Colombia's right-wing government deployed 700 troops to crush the labor action. The U.S. Embassy subsequently informed then-Secretary of State Frank Kellogg that "I have the honor to report... that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded 1,000."
Violence against Colombian banana workers continued into the 21st century, often with impunity for the perpetrators. Litigants in Doe v. Chiquita said Monday's jury decision marked the beginning of a new era of accountability.
"This verdict sends a powerful message to corporations everywhere: profiting from human rights abuses will not go unpunished," EarthRights International general counsel Marco Simons said in a statement. "These families, victimized by armed groups and corporations, asserted their power and prevailed in the judicial process."
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House Dems Target Big Oil for 'Weaponizing' Law Against Protesters to Block Climate Action
"Now is a critical moment for Congress to act and introduce federal anti-SLAPP legislation," said one attorney who testified at Wednesday's hearing.
Sep 14, 2022
Civil libertarians applauded Wednesday as a U.S. congressional committee held a hearing to "examine how the fossil fuel industry is weaponizing the law to stifle First Amendment-protected speech" and thwart climate action.
"Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia have enacted commonsense anti-SLAPP legislation."
At issue during the hearing were strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), which are described by one advocacy group as "an all-too-common tool for intimidating and silencing criticism through expensive, baseless legal proceedings."
Democratic lawmakers, activists, and community leaders explained during the hearing how the fossil fuel industry "uses SLAPPs to target environmental activists and nonprofits to deter them from speaking out against proposed fossil fuel pipelines and other projects that contribute to climate change."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), chair of the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, announced plans to introduce legislation to deter SLAPPs.
"Wealthy and powerful corporate entities are... dragging citizens and public interest opponents through meritless but protracted and expensive litigation to expose anyone who dares stand up to them to financial and personal ruin," Raskin said during his opening remarks.
"It is crucial that Congress protect the rights of American citizens and civic groups to engage in lawful political protest and organizing without being subjected to ruinously expensive and meritless retaliatory litigation," he added.
Anne White Hat, a Sicangu Lakota Indigenous woman who has been involved in anti-fossil fuel struggles from Standing Rock to Louisiana, is one of 16 activists who faced up to five years in prison for their activism against the Bayou Bridge pipeline.
Last year, a local district attorney threw out the charges against the activists and vowed to never prosecute them under the state's critical infrastructure law, a tool used by oil-producing states like Texas and Oklahoma to deter protests.
White Hat described the fear of constantly "wondering if they're gonna come knocking on the door to take me to jail and having to make plans for my children."
"In terms of just being out there and going out, it really is a chilling effect on us as frontline organizers," she added. "It also impacts other First Amendment rights like freedom of religion. One of the gentlemen involved in our lawsuit was denied the right to travel to go to practice his religious activities."
On Monday, Common Dreams reported that the fossil fuel industry has targeted more than 150 climate activists and community leaders in recent years with SLAPPs lawsuits and other forms of "judicial harassment," according to a report published by the legal advocacy group EarthRights International.
The report noted that public officials including Democratic Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke--who was sued for defamation earlier this year by Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren over criticism of the company's pipeline profits--have been targeted, along with frontline climate campaigners.
For activists caught up in SLAPP litigation, legal costs can be crushing for individuals and small groups as cases drag on for years.
"More than six years from when the first SLAPP was filed against us, [we are] still forced to invest time and resources into these legal battles that otherwise would have been used to protect communities and the environment from toxic pollution and the existential threat of climate change," Greenpeace general counsel Deepa Padmanabha said at Wednesday's hearing.
Padmanabha and others who testified Wednesday called on Congress to pass federal anti-SLAPP laws to prevent First Amendment abuses and protect the rights of people and advocacy groups to participate in the democratic process.
"Now is a critical moment for Congress to act and introduce federal anti-SLAPP legislation," she asserted. "Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia have enacted commonsense anti-SLAPP legislation, and all were introduced in a bipartisan or nonpartisan fashion."
"While federal legislation might not put an end to all SLAPPs," added Padmanabha, "it would be a significant step towards becoming a nation of justice where our fundamental right to speak truth to power is protected."
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'David Beat Goliath' as Line 3 Water Defenders Win Protective Ruling
"Today's ruling shows that Hubbard County cannot repress Native people for the benefit of Enbridge by circumventing the law," said Indigenous water protector Winona LaDuke.
Sep 13, 2022
Indigenous water defenders and their allies on Tuesday celebrated a Minnesota court ruling protecting a Line 3 protest camp from illegal government repression.
"This is a piece in the long game and we aren't afraid."
Hubbard County District Judge Jana Austad issued a ruling shielding the Indigenous-led Giniw Collective's Camp Namewag--where opponents organize resistance to Enbridge's Line 3 tar sands pipeline--from local law enforcement's unlawful blockades and harassment.
The ruling follows months of litigation on behalf of Indigenous water protectors, whose legal team last year secured a temporary restraining order issued by Austad against Hubbard County, Sheriff Cory Aukes, and the local land commissioner for illegally blocking access to Camp Namewag.
"Today David beat Goliath in a legal victory for people protecting the climate from rapacious corporate destruction," Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, director of the Center for Protest Law & Litigation at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, said in a statement.
"The outrageous blockade and repression of an Indigenous-led water protector camp were fueled by massive sums of money flowing from the Enbridge corporation to the sheriff's department as it acted against water protectors challenging Enbridge's destruction of Native lands," she added.
Indigenous activist and Giniw Collective founder Tara Houska, who is a plaintiff in the case, said that "15 months ago, I was woken up at 6:00 am and walked down my driveway to a grinning sheriff holding a notice to vacate my yearslong home."
"That day turned into 50 squad cars on a dirt road and a riot line blocking my driveway," she recalled. "Twelve people--guests from all over who came to protect the rivers and wild rice from Line 3 tar sands--were arrested and thrown into the dirt."
Houska continued:
Today's ruling is a testament to the lengths Hubbard County was willing to go to criminalize and harass Native women, land defenders, and anyone associated with us--spending unknown amounts of taxpayer dollars and countless hours trying to convince the court that the driveway to Namewag camp wasn't a driveway. It's also a testament to steadfast commitment to resisting oppression. This is a piece in the long game and we aren't afraid. We haven't forgotten the harms to us and the harms to the Earth. Onward.
Winona LaDuke, co-founder and executive director of Honor the Earth and a former Green Party vice presidential candidate, stated that "we are grateful to Judge Austad for recognizing how Hubbard County exceeded its authority and violated our rights."
"Today's ruling shows that Hubbard County cannot repress Native people for the benefit of Enbridge by circumventing the law," she added. "This is also an important victory for all people of the North reinforcing that a repressive police force should not be able to stop you from accessing your land upon which you hunt or live."
EarthRights general counsel Marco Simons asserted that "the court's ruling is a major rebuke to police efforts to unlawfully target water protectors and to interfere with their activities protesting the Line 3 pipeline."
"Blocking access to the Namewag camp exemplifies a pattern of unlawful and discriminatory police conduct incentivized by an Enbridge-funded account from which the police can seek reimbursement for Line 3-related activities," he continued.
"Police forces should protect the public interest, not private companies," Simons added. "Cases like this highlight the dangers of allowing the police to act as a private security arm for pipeline companies."
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Campaigners Say IPCC Report Reveals 'Bleak and Brutal Truth' About Climate Emergency
"It's not about taking our foot off the accelerator anymore—it's about slamming on the brakes," said one expert in response to latest U.N. assessment.
Apr 04, 2022
A United Nations report on the climate emergency--released Monday after negotiations spilled into overtime--sparked a fresh wave of calls for bolder and scientifically informed action to rapidly and dramatically reduce planet-heating emissions for the sake of all life on Earth.
"This monumental climate report is distressing but it is not surprising."
"How much more destruction must we witness, and how many more scientific reports will it take, before governments finally acknowledge fossil fuels as the real culprits behind the human suffering being felt across the globe?" asked Namrata Chowdhary, head of public engagement at the advocacy group 350.org.
"As we come ever closer to the tipping points for human existence, once again scientists are sounding a clear alarm: Massive cuts in emissions are unavoidable to avert the worst," Chowdhary added.
The new report, entitled Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, is the third installment from the sixth assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Earlier analyses, released in August and February, focused on physical science and impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, respectively. A synthesis document is forthcoming.
The analysis was produced by 278 authors from 65 nations and is based on over 18,000 papers and nearly 60,000 comments from countries and experts. The document emphasizes the need for systemic changes globally, including decarbonizing the energy sector, electrifying transportation, shifting to more plant-based diets, and restoring key ecosystems.
While there is evidence of increased climate action globally--particularly with wind and solar energy and well as electric vehicles (EVs)--the IPCC report concludes that "unless there are immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, 1.5degC is beyond reach."
Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5degC is the more ambitious goal of the Paris agreement, which also has a 2degC target and has guided global climate policies and talks since it was finalized in late 2015.
"This latest IPCC report finds that global emissions are now 54% higher than they were in 1990 and starkly points out that from 2010 to 2019, heat-trapping emissions were higher than ever and are still rising globally across all major sectors," noted Kristina Dahl, a principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Dahl continued:
To keep the principal goal of the Paris agreement within reach, countries will need to strengthen their national pledges and decrease global heat-trapping emissions by roughly 40% relative to 2019 levels within this decade. Because we have failed to rein in global warming emissions to date, the choices available to us are no longer ideal. In addition to deep, absolute cuts in heat-trapping emissions, some amount of these emissions will also need to be removed from the atmosphere if nations are to limit planetary warming to 1.5degC or even 2degC. Most emissions removal options, however, come with substantial, and in some cases untenable, tradeoffs. On the other hand, surpassing the 1.5degC threshold would lead to catastrophic climate impacts--with some so extreme adapting will no longer be feasible--as well as significant loss of life, property, and ecosystems in the United States and around the world. The science of climate change, its consequences, and the solutions to it could not be clearer. The ball is now in the court of world leaders and policymakers, who must act with the utmost urgency to address the global climate crisis.
Oxfam climate policy lead Nafkote Dabi declared Monday that "this IPCC report pulls no punches. The bleak and brutal truth about global warming is this: Barring action on a sweeping scale, humanity faces worsening hunger, disease, economic collapse, mass migration of people, and unbearable heat. It's not about taking our foot off the accelerator anymore--it's about slamming on the brakes. A warming planet is humanity's biggest emergency."
Describing 1.5degC as "a survival target" that "remains within our grasp, but just barely," Dabi highlighted the need for "a dramatic shift towards sustainable renewable energy." While warning that ramping up fossil fuel production in response to Russia's war on Ukraine "is shortsighted folly," she noted that the costs of extreme weather exacerbated by human-caused global heating "are piling up" and "do not hit everyone equally."
"People living in poverty are suffering first and worst," Dabi explained. "Farmers in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia have lost crops and entire herds of livestock to an exceptionally long and severe drought. Millions of people in East Africa are now on the brink of a hunger catastrophe. Meanwhile, the richest people who have massive carbon footprints are turning up the air-conditioning on their mega-yachts."
"This monumental climate report is distressing but it is not surprising," she added. "Scientists and the IPCC have been warning governments of this danger for decades. Our future lies in the decisions we make today. We cannot tackle climate change later. We must clamp down on emissions now or face more catastrophic climate disasters, season after season."
The campaigner's call for action--particularly by wealthy countries most responsible for polluting the planet--was echoed by other activists and experts, including Meena Raman from Friends of the Earth Malaysia, who said that "it is a disgrace that decades of cowardly decisions by rich industrial nations have led us here, to the brink of climate catastrophe laid bare in this latest IPCC assessment report."
"The United States in particular must accept its role in creating the climate impacts we're experiencing right now," Raman added. "Scientists have confirmed that much more finance must urgently flow from developed to developing countries, to enable the latter to adapt and adjust to irreparable damage from climate impacts. This funding is necessary to secure the well-being of their citizens and economies. Without it, our hard-fought progress for equity, equality, rights, and justice will unravel."
"The IPCC report out today reaffirms that frontline communities, Indigenous groups, and youth groups should have a seat at the table."
Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel similarly focused on the United States, declaring that "solutions to solve this crisis exist but political courage and policy creativity are lacking" and calling on President Joe Biden to "immediately declare a climate emergency to ramp down oil and gas extraction and limit its harmful methane pollution."
Keith Slack of EarthRights International pointed out that "as governments have failed to take meaningful climate action, Indigenous and frontline communities such as the water protectors at Line 3 in Minnesota, those in the Omkoi region of Thailand, and the Macho Piro people in the Peruvian Amazon have risen to address the crisis by building a global movement to resist climate-damaging industries and denounce the inaction of world leaders."
"The IPCC report out today reaffirms that frontline communities, Indigenous groups, and youth groups should have a seat at the table in the adoption of climate policies," said Slack, the group's director of strategy and campaigns. "The IPCC also acknowledges the important role of climate litigation in helping communities protect their rights in the midst of the climate crisis."
"The main barrier to a sustainable future at this moment is that governments are not showing the political will for an energy transition and are not listening to frontline communities and everyday citizens who are demanding change," he added.
Varshini Prakash, executive director of the U.S.-based Sunrise Movement, agreed. As she put it: "We are at a crossroads right now. Do we continue to rely on fossil fuel corporations and petrostates who are fueling war and making record profits at the expense of working families, or do we begin a mass mobilization of our government and society to transition to a renewable energy future?"
According to Prakash, "The science of the IPCC report is clear: Fossil fuels are to blame for the climate crisis, and our government's continued support for fossil fuels at home and abroad is killing us."
This post has been updated with comment from Sunrise Movement.
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US Lawmakers Praised for Pushing Sanctions to 'Crack Down Climate-Destroying Activities'
"It's time to treat the destruction of our climate as what it really is—a crime."
Nov 04, 2021
A quartet of congressional progressives was applauded by the nonprofit EarthRights International on Thursday for urging members of President Joe Biden's Cabinet to use "targeted sanctions as a method of deterring reckless, climate-destroying behavior."
"Those who destroy the planet for profit, such as fossil fuel companies, need to face the consequences."
The lawmakers wrote in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that "in combination with diplomacy, international climate aid, global agreements, and voluntary pledges that can encourage positive climate action, targeted measures could deter government officials, corporations, and private individuals from causing additional harm."
In a statement, Keith Slack, director of strategy and campaigns for EarthRights International, welcomed the new sanctions call from Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) along with Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), which comes as world leaders are in Glasgow, Scotland for the COP26 climate summit that Biden attended earlier this week.
"Climate science clearly shows that we have a narrow window to act to avert climate catastrophe," Slack said. "It's time to treat the destruction of our climate as what it really is--a crime. Those who destroy the planet for profit, such as fossil fuel companies, need to face the consequences."
Slack highlighted that "worldwide, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other frontline communities face violence, repression, and human rights abuses as powerful actors exploit the planet for profit," pointing to the Wampis Nation in Peru as just one example.
"Throughout the Amazon region, business, organized crime, and other corrupt actors drive deforestation and threaten the lives of environmental defenders," he said. "More than 300 people have been killed during the last decade in the context of conflicts over land in the Amazon region."
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Echoing lawmakers' call for the administration to "use sanctions and all other tools at its disposal to crack down climate-destroying activities," the EarthRights International campaigner continued:
We use sanctions to address other serious global problems, like drug trafficking, organized crime, corruption, and human rights abuses. We need to add climate-wrecking behavior to that list... A great place to start is with the fossil fuel industry. Fossil fuel companies bear tremendous responsibility for the climate crisis and need to be held accountable for the harms they impose on people and the planet.
Frontline communities living in the shadows of fossil fuel development face the wrath of corporate power, inept governments, and an escalating climate crisis. To protect these communities and their rights, the U.S. government needs to sanction those who threaten and harm them.
Emphasizing that "reliance on fossil fuels is antithetical to solving the climate crisis," Slack noted that while "making soaring rhetorical statements," the Biden administration "puzzlingly... has also called for increased oil and gas production and has not yet canceled the Line 3 pipeline, despite vocal opposition to the project by Indigenous communities."
"We must also remember that strong climate action begins at home," he said. "The U.S. government needs to combine sanctions and other foreign policy tools with strong domestic accountability measures to ensure that U.S.-based corporations end their efforts to block the shift to a carbon-neutral economy."
The four lawmakers, in their letter, similarly said that "we need to rapidly transform our global economy on an unprecedented scale," meaning that "we must deploy all the foreign policy and domestic tools available to us."
Escobar and Markey, who spearheaded the letter, in April introduced the Targeting Environmental and Climate Recklessness Act (TECRA), which would codify the U.S. authority to sanction foreign individuals and corporations most responsible for exacerbating the climate emergency.
In addition to advocating for applying sanctions to "government officials, individuals, and corporations linked to climate-related corruption and human rights abuses," the members of Congress pushed for ramping up diplomatic engagement, particularly with the Chinese government.
The lawmakers said that the United States must work to ensure that Chinese development finance institutions "do not undermine global de-carbonization efforts" and should encourage the Asian nation to "develop and adopt safeguards to promote low-carbon, climate-resilient investments over high-carbon projects."
"China's recent commitment to eliminate its coal financing projects abroad, after pressure from the Biden administration," they wrote, "is a step in the right direction."
This post has been updated to include that U.S. President Joe Biden attended COP26 earlier this week.
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Blow to 'Powerful Corporate Interests' as Federal Court Throws Out Pipeline Company Lawsuit Against DAPL Water Protectors
Greenpeace lawyer confident that decision will deter other companies "from abusing the legal system in their quest to bully those who speak truth to power."
Feb 14, 2019
In a "landmark" ruling on Thursday, a federal court in North Dakota tossed out a "baseless" case against Greenpeace and other environmental and Indigenous activists who organized protests against the deeply controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which drew thousands of people to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 2016.
"This is what happens when greedy corporations go after Indigenous women grounded in the power of prayer, the power of relationship building, and the power of collective organizing."
--Krystal Two Bulls, defendant
District Judge Billy Roy Wilson dismissed (pdf) all claims against all defendants in a lawsuit brought by fossil fuel giant Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), which sought to hold the water protectors liable under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for millions of dollars in alleged damages.
"Donating to people whose cause you support does not create a RICO enterprise," Wilson wrote in his opinion. "Posting articles written by people with similar beliefs does not create a RICO enterprise."
While the protests against DAPL, which were met with a militarized response from law enforcement, were ultimately unsuccessful--and the now-operational pipeline already boasts an alarming track record of oil spills--the activists and their attorneys welcomed the win in court on Friday, noting that Wilson's ruling aligns with that of a similar case that was dismissed in 2017.
"We are confident that this decision will set a precedent that deters Energy Transfer and other corporations from abusing the legal system in their quest to bully those who speak truth to power," declared Greenpeace USA general counsel Tom Wetterer. "This is a huge victory not just for Greenpeace but for anyone and everyone who has ever stood up against powerful corporate interests."
Wetterer posited that the dismissal of ETP's "baseless lawsuit against Greenpeace and others sends a clear message to companies trying to muzzle civil society that corporate overreach will not be tolerated. It is also a check on corporate efforts to silence dissent."
"We are confident that this decision will set a precedent that deters Energy Transfer and other corporations from abusing the legal system in their quest to bully those who speak truth to power."
--Tom Wetterer, Greenpeace USA
Defense attorneys called the case a "textbook example" of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP).
"The goal of a SLAPP is not to win, but to burden the defendants with costly and time-intensive litigation procedures, while creating a chilling effect that discourages others from speaking out on issues of public concern," EarthRights International explained in a statement on Friday. "The judge's swift dismissal suggests that the federal judiciary may be losing patience with these abusive tactics."
Denouncing ETP's "embarrassing and expensive attempt to silence organizers who stand for justice," Astha Sharma Pokharel, a legal fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, charged that the "baseless lawsuit should never have been filed, but [this] victory will only strengthen the movements they tried so hard to suppress."
Celebrating the win, defendant Krystal Two Bulls concluded: "Loss. Defeat. Dismissal. This is what happens when greedy corporations go after Indigenous women grounded in the power of prayer, the power of relationship building, and the power of collective organizing. Not only was my right to free speech upheld by this decision, but also my rights as an Indigenous woman to steward this land. Now, more than ever, we ALL need our rights to share our voices uplifted, supported, and protected."
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Facing Fires and Floods, Colorado Communities Launch Landmark Suit Against Fossil Fuel Companies
"Climate change is not just about sea level rise. It affects all of us in the middle of the country as well."
Apr 18, 2018
Taking a cue from coastal communities that are aiming to hold the fossil fuel industry legally accountable for significantly contributing to the climate crisis, three Colorado municipalities are suing ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy "for the substantial role they played and continue to play in causing, contributing to, and exacerbating climate change."
"These oil companies need to pay their fair share."
--Boulder Mayor Suzanne Jones
San Miguel County, Boulder County, and the city of Boulder--which filed the lawsuit (pdf) in Colorado state court on Wednesday--are believed to be the first inland communities to seek compensation from oil and gas companies for climate-related damage to the health, safety, welfare, and property of their residents.
"Climate change is not just about sea level rise," noted Boulder County Commissioner Elise Jones. "It affects all of us in the middle of the country as well."
A large number of residents in these rural communities depend on tourism, farming, and ranching to get by--activities that are increasingly affected by intensifying heat waves, wildfires, droughts, and floods. Scientists--including those within the fossil fuel industry--have for years warned about extreme weather consequences of global warming, which is driven largely by greenhouse gas emissions from dirty energy.
"For over 50 years, Suncor and Exxon have known that fossil fuels would cause severe climate impacts. To enhance their own profits, they concealed this knowledge and spread doubt about science they knew to be correct," said Marco Simons, general counsel for EarthRights International, which is representing the Colorado communities alongside the Niskanen Center.
These oil companies need to pay their fair share," declared Boulder Mayor Suzanne Jones.
The suit was celebrated by environmental groups and activists.
Union of Concerned Scientists president Ken Kimmell pointed out that "communities in Colorado and across the country are already doing what they can to curb their carbon emissions and are spending millions of dollars to adapt to a wide array of harms caused by global warming."
"We need to shift the costs back to these companies that have profited off their demands for unabated pollution in the face of global climate destabilization," said Micah Parkin of 350 Colorado.
Rebecca Dickson, chair of a local Sierra Club group, called for "a cultural shift."
"The fossil fuel industry has normalized oil and gas in our lives while concealing the dangers," Dickson said. "In the future, when we talk about 'energy,' we should be referring to renewable energy, not fossil fuels."
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Federal Judge's Unprecedented Order on Climate Science 'Could Open Floodgates' for Big Oil Lawsuits
"The court is forcing these companies to go on the record about their understanding of climate science, which they have desperately tried to avoid doing."
Mar 08, 2018
With a decision that could have far-reaching implications, a federal judge in California has ordered the first ever U.S. court hearing on climate science for a "public nuisance" lawsuit, meaning that major oil and gas companies for the first time may have to go on the record regarding what they knew about the planetary impacts of their products--and when.
"At the core of the plaintiff's lawsuit is the idea that these companies have long known about risks of their products...yet they took a course of action that resisted regulation and sought to keep them on the market as long as possible."
--Michael Burger,
Columbia University
"This will be the closest that we have seen to a trial on climate science in the United States, to date," Michael Burger, a lawyer who heads the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, told McClatchy's D.C. Bureau.
Last year, the cities of San Francisco and Oakland filed the lawsuit against five major oil and gas companies--BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell--in hopes of holding them to account for fossil fuel production's massive contributions to global warming and the impact the climate crisis is having on coastal communities.
On March 21, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup will allow the cities as well as the fossil fuel companies named in the complaint (pdf) "to conduct a two-part tutorial on the subject of global warming and climate change," according to a notice (pdf) filed by the judge.
"The first part will trace the history of scientific study of climate change, beginning with scientific inquiry into the formation and melting of the ice ages, periods of historical cooling and warming, smog, ozone, nuclear winter, volcanoes, and global warming," the filing explained. "The second part will set forth the best science now available on global warming, glacier melt, sea rise, and coastal flooding."
Attorneys from both sides will have an hour for each part, but may defer to expert testimonies. Alsup filed a second notice (pdf) earlier this week that featured a list of questions he expects each side to address. The judge's order for the tutorial came the same day he denied (pdf) the cities' motion to remand the case to state court.
Although ExxonMobil now publicly takes the stance that carbon emissions are warming the planet and "action must be taken" to "assess the risks" posed by such warming, as McClatchy notes, "the hearing and ongoing trial will focus more on who knew what, when, and what they did in response."
The cities alleged in their complaint, citing recent damning reports about secret industry research, that Exxon and the other companies have continued to promote oil and gas production "despite knowing--since at least the late 1970s and early 1980s if not earlier--that massive fossil fuel usage would cause dangerous global warming."
As Burger explained, "At the core of the plaintiff's lawsuit is the idea that these companies have long known about risks of their products...yet they took a course of action that resisted regulation and sought to keep them on the market as long as possible."
By ordering the tutorial, "the court is forcing these companies to go on the record about their understanding of climate science," added EarthRights International general counsel Marco Simmons, "which they have desperately tried to avoid doing."
In a piece for Forbes, business attorney Brian H. Potts concludes that Alsup's decision to proceed with the case in federal court "could open the floodgates for climate change litigation in federal courts around the country."
"As a result of this decision, coal, oil, and natural gas producers could face federal common law nuisance claims all over the country," he writes. "The size and scale of these suits could mirror the tobacco litigation that began in the 1990s."
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Honduran Farmers Sue World Bank Lending Arm for 'Profiting From Murder'
A private lending arm of the World Bank is not 'ending poverty,' it is 'ending the lives of the poor,' says one farmer
Mar 08, 2017
Honduran farmers on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against a branch of the World Bank for funding a massive palm oil corporation that the suit alleges has been responsible for the killings of over 100 farmers, as well as torture, violent assaults, and "other acts of aggression."
"The horrendous spate of violence that followed the IFC's loan to Dinant is probably one of the most severe instances of corporate-related human rights abuse and financier negligence in the past decade."
--EarthRights International lawyerThe World Bank has "knowingly profited from the financing of murder," argues the lawsuit filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C.
"We have lost our companeros, they have left our children without fathers, it's been difficult to move forward, we live from our families and our land and now we are left with nothing," said one of the farmers, according to EarthRights International (ERI), the nonprofit which filed the suit on the farmers' behalf.
All the farmers named in the suit were protected by the pseudonyms Juan Doe and Juana Doe, to shield them from retaliation on the part of the palm oil company, Dinant.
"We want justice and the ability to raise our children again," the farmer added. "We have to move forward." The suit is requesting damages for specific deaths.
The suit alleges that the "International Financial Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group's private lending arm, together with an IFC financial intermediary, the IFC Asset Management Corporation, have provided millions of dollars in financing to Dinant, even though, at the time, there were widespread allegations that Dinant employed hitmen, military forces, and private security guards to intimidate and kill local farmers who claim Dinant's owner stole their land decades prior," ERI wrote in a statement.
The rights advocacy organization continued:
The IFC (with U.S. taxpayer money) and IFC-AMC knowingly financed Dinant's campaign of terror and dispossession against Honduran farmers. The IFC's own internal watchdog, the Office of the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO), found that IFC failed to adhere to its own policies to protect local communities, and continued to allow the company to breach those safeguards and either failed to spot or deliberately ignored the serious social, political and human rights context in which this company is operating.
The result was an explosion of extreme violence by public and private security forces against the farmers, their movement leaders, and lawyers representing them. Over 100 farmers have been killed since November 2009 when the IFC disbursed the first half of a $30 million loan to Dinant; and the number of killings continues to grow today. So too has IFC's support for Dinant; even after the IFC's internal watchdog scolded the IFC for the 2009 loan, the IFC continued supporting Dinant via an opaque system of financial intermediaries, including the IFC-AMC and the Honduran bank, Ficohsa.
The suit claims that the purpose of the systemic violence is to "intimidate farmers from asserting competing rights to land that Dinant has sought to control."
"The horrendous spate of violence that followed the IFC's loan to Dinant is probably one of the most severe instances of corporate-related human rights abuse and financier negligence in the past decade," said one ERI lawyer, also unnamed because of security concerns.
Another Honduran farmer quoted by ERI described the horrific violence: "The police pulled people out of their houses. Military, police, and guards. We saw they were beating people including kids, so we were yelling, 'Don't hit the people!' One bullet hit me, it still affects my breathing. I didn't realize I'd been shot, but I touched it and saw blood. Another person was shot through the stomach."
"Every day I am scared, but this is how life has become," said a different farmer. "At the end of the attack against me, the guards and military told me that they know where I live and that they will come to get me if I file a complaint against them."
ERI argues: "While the IFC boasts of its mission to 'end extreme poverty by 2030 and boost prosperity in every developing country,' the IFC has knowingly entered one of the world's most persistent and abusive land conflicts on the side of Dinant, a primary author of poverty and violence in Honduras. In the words of one farmer in the Bajo Aguan, the IFC is not 'ending poverty;' it is 'ending the lives of the poor.'"
"The IFC clearly cannot police itself and it should no longer be allowed to hide behind a veil of immunity," an ERI lawyer said. "The courts of the United States must be open to hear this case because nobody--not individuals, not corporations, not governments, and not the IFC--can get away with aiding these human rights abuses."
Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for land and rights defenders. In 2016 alone, multiple Indigenous activists--including Berta Caceres, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work--were killed.
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UN Observers Monitoring Abuses Against Standing Rock Water Protectors
Pipeline owners warned that they are 'complicit' in police brutality against Indigenous demonstrators
Nov 01, 2016
The increasingly violent attacks by North Dakota police and private security forces against peaceful, Indigenous water protectors have caught the nation's attention as well as that of the United Nations, an arm of which has begun an investigation into the protesters' claims of human rights abuses, including "excessive force, unlawful arrests, and mistreatment in jail," the Guardian reported late Monday.
Observers have begun collecting testimonies from those protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline and, on Monday, Grand Chief Edward John, a Native American member of the U.N. permanent forum on Indigenous issues, met with police officials in Mandan, North Dakota and visited the cages where some of the 141 arrested protesters were held after last week's military-style police raid.
Those detained at the Morton County Correctional Center said that while they were held in the 10-by-14-foot cages they were forced to wait for basic necessities, such as "access to bathrooms, food, water, and medical attention," the Guardian reported.
"We embarked upon a peaceful and prayerful campaign," Standing Rock Sioux member Phyllis Young told the U.N. representatives. "They were placed in cages. They had numbers written on their arms very much like concentration camps." Young said that the police's treatment of native people was "not only conditions of colonialism, but conditions of war."
"The government is allowing the police force to be used as a military force to protect an oil company," added protester Kandi Mossett, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nation.
The Morton County Sheriff's office has also been accused of tracking the activists through a feature on Facebook, a claim which spurred more than one million people worldwide to "check in" to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation on Monday in an attempt to "overwhelm and confuse" law enforcement and express solidarity with the demonstrators.
The fact that a campaign of "intimidation and repression" is being waged on behalf of a private company is not to be overlooked, according to a coalition of environmental groups, which late last week sent a letter (pdf) to the owners of the $3.7 billiontar sands pipeline, reminding them of their "complicity" in the ongoing human rights abuses.
"As joint owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline, you have a corporate duty under international law and the laws of the United States to respect human rights and to avoid complicity in further human rights abuses. It is imperative that you take action to stop the attacks on peaceful occupiers immediately," states the letter, which is addressed to officials with Energy Transfer Partners, Phillips 66, Enbridge Energy Partners, and Wells Fargo bank.
The violent raid and mass arrest last week "has created a situation of urgency in which the companies must take immediate responsibility for the human rights impacts of their actions, including the companies' complicity in the actions of others," the letter continues:
As a matter of international law, your companies have an affirmative responsibility to protect human rights, including the responsibility to: avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts to peaceful protestors through your companies' own activities; and to seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to your companies' operations. These responsibilities also apply to banks and other institutions that provide financing for a project that will cause such adverse human rights impacts.
"We emphasize and caution that the active involvement by persons acting under color of governmental authority, including state or local law enforcement, does not absolve your companies of these duties," it further states.
The signatories, who are leaders with the Center for International Environmental Law, Honor the Earth, Bold Alliance, Climate Justice Programme, EarthRights International, Oil Change International, and Greenpeace USA, note that they "have spent decades advocating and litigating on behalf of Indigenous communities outside the United States," whose rights are too often "violated by proponents of extractive industries around the world...And we are alarmed that these all-too-familiar patterns are playing out in the United States at Standing Rock."
Similarly, Roberto Borrero, a Taino tribe member and representative of the International Indian Treaty Council, who is assisting the U.N. in collecting the testimonies, told the Guardian, "When you look at what the international standards are for the treatment of people, and you are in a place like the United States, it's really astounding to hear some of this testimony."
International human rights watchdog Amnesty International has also sent a delegation of human rights observers to monitor the police response to the ongoing protests. Meanwhile, the water protectors have vowed to maintain their vigil throughout the winter and continue their resistance as the pipeline construction encroaches upon their sacred land and water.
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