Oil giant lawsuit signals power of third world courts
Article from: OGEL 3 (2003), in Roundup of Articles
Summary
Attorneys representing some 30,000 Ecuadorian Indians have filed a billion dollar lawsuit against ChevronTexaco Corporation in Ecuador's Oriente region in a case that could greatly boost the power of local courts in developing countries to hear complaints involving multi-national corporations. The case, which was filed in the oil town of Lago Agrio, charges that ChevronTexaco systematically destroyed the environment and homeland of a number of rainforest peoples through massive dumping of billions of gallons of highly toxic wastewater and crude oil from 1971 to 1992. In ...