CIEL Expresses Concern about the Violation of Human Rights and Environmental Destruction Involved in the ATCA Case against Royal Dutch Shell

 

May 13, 2009

CIEL is gravely concerned about the increasing frequency of cases involving human rights violations and environmental destruction. For example, on May 26, 2009, oil company Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) will stand trial in federal court in New York for complicity on egregious human rights and environmental abuses in Nigeria.

Wiwa v. Shell and Wiwa v. Anderson seek to hold Shell accountable for its role in human rights abuses in Nigeria. These abuses include attacks that led to murder, torture, and destruction of villages throughout the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta, as well as the arrest, torture, and execution of community activists who led a powerful movement to resist the environmental degradation and human rights abuses accompanying Shell's operations on their land. In 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa, an acclaimed writer and leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni people (MOSOP), was hanged along with eight other Ogoni leaders, after a trial before a military tribunal.

The lawsuits against Shell were filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, EarthRights International and other human rights attorneys. For more information on this case, please see www.wiwavshell.org.

CIEL brings human rights cases to human rights courts, providing legal, tactical, and technical support for advocates in cases that have high potential for both helping local communities and developing the law in this area.

For more information, please contact Marcos Orellana.