by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 23, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling
By Survival International
Security forces are cracking down on the Dongria Kondh tribe as they prepare for a religious festival this weekend at the top of India’s most contentious mountain.
Hundreds are determined to attend the Niyamraja ritual in the sacred Niyamgiri Hills, which are at the center of a controversial mining project involving UK company Vedanta Resources.
During the worship, the Dongria will take an oath pledging never to leave the mountain, which faces renewed threats as companies eye its valuable resources.
The Dongria have fought hard to resist such advances, but speaking out against proposed mining continues to be dangerous.
Survival has received reports of arrests and beatings, and in the last week alone, police have shut down six meetings where food supplies were being organized for this weekend’s festival.
Giridhari Patra from the Niyamgiri Protection Committee said, ‘Intimidating and threatening the Dongria before one of their most important festivals is unforgivable. The mountain is the seat of their god and the basis of their identity. We will never give it up to Vedanta.’
The tribe’s victory in 2010 over the mining giant, which wanted to dig an open-pit mine to reach the mountain’s aluminum-ore deposits, was historic.
However, their way of life is once again in danger as the controversy is reconsidered by India’s highest court on April 9 this year.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘It’s disgraceful that the police are harassing tribespeople in the run up to this religious festival. Niyamgiri is everything to the Dongria Kondh – they must be allowed to remain there. The Dongria’s victory over Vedanta was inspiring for tribal people around the world. All eyes will be on the Supreme Court this April.’
From Survival International: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/8125
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 23, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying, Mining & Drilling
By ICTMN Staff
The Alaska Native group REDOIL has joined with eight environmental groups in an effort to stop a drilling ship from drilling in Arctic waters, the Associated Press reports.
The drilling ship Noble Discoverer, operating for Shell Oil, was granted an air quality permit by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to drill three exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast this summer.
REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands) has joined Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Oceana, Pacific Environment, Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society in suing the 9th Circuit Court.
According to AP, Colin O’Brien, an attorney for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm representing the groups, said “We think EPA took shortcuts. … We believe the permit failed to ensure that all air pollution controls are in place and that all standards are met for this major new source of pollution in the Arctic.”
A Shell spokeswoman said that the company’s vessels met EPA standards, but O’Brien disputes this. Shell hopes to send a second drill ship, the Kulluk, to the area, and the Discoverer would be accompanied by more than a dozen support ships. O’Brien says that EPA “only required [the] new [emissions] technology on the Discoverer drill ship and failed to hold Shell’s other vessels to the same standards.”
From Indian Country Today:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 21, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Amazon Defense Coalition
With its options dwindling and the mistakes of its legal team mounting, Chevron has suffered another courtroom setback in its eleventh-hour attempt to block indigenous rainforest communities from enforcing their $18 billion judgment against the oil giant´s assets around the world.
A three-judge appellate panel in Ecuador on Friday ruled that a Chevron request for a special bond waiver had no basis in Ecuadorian law, thereby paving the way for the commencement of enforcement actions. Chevron has stripped its assets from Ecuador, forcing the rainforest communities to consider standard judgment collection lawsuits against the oil giant in other countries.
“We intend to do everything in our power to ensure Chevron’s management team meets the company’s legal obligations and pays the full amount of the judgment,” said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the 30,000 Ecuadorians who initiated the lawsuit against the oil giant in U.S. federal court in 1993.
“Chevron broke the rainforest of Ecuador,” said Fajardo. “Now it must fix it.”
Once the judgment against Chevron was affirmed by the same Ecuador appellate panel in early January, the oil giant was obligated to request the bond pending an extraordinary final appeal to the nation’s highest court. Payment of such a bond was the only way under Ecuadorian law to temporarily suspend enforcement of the judgment, but Chevron’s legal team blundered by never asking for it, said Fajardo.
Instead of requesting the bond — which easily could have been paid given Chevron’s annual revenues of $240 billion — Chevron requested an unprecedented waiver of the bond requirement. After Chevron sought the waiver, the rainforest communities charged the oil giant was seeking “special treatment” not available to any other litigant in Ecuador.
The court, in a four-page decision, said seeking a bond “is the only established legal mechanism to give litigants in Ecuador the opportunity to suspend execution of a judgment.” In reference to Chevron, it added: “The losing party decided not to exercise this right.”
Separately, the court rejected an “order” issued Thursday from a private investment arbitration that Ecuador’s government freeze the 18-year litigation until it can rule on a separate set of Chevron claims that the court system in Ecuador treated it unfairly. See here. The private investment panel has been harshly criticized by jurists for violating international law, and the rainforest communities have said its actions have no bearing on their claims given they are not a party to the proceedings. See here and here.
In a detailed analysis of the international law obligations of Ecuador’s government, the appellate panel said the Inter-American Convention of Human Rights and Ecuador’s Constitution trumped any authority from the investment panel, which was convened by Chevron under the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty. The rainforest communities recently filed a petition with a noted human rights court to block any order from the secret arbitral panel, whose members — all private lawyers — stand to reap millions of dollars of fees for simply granting jurisdiction over the case.
“No part of this Convention can be interpreted to permit any person (such as Chevron or the Arbitral Panel) to interfere with the enjoyment and exercise of rights and liberties recognized in the Convention, nor can it override other rights and guarantees that are inherent in the rights of all men,” the panel wrote in its decision.
The panel also ruled that international law to protect investors can never override international treaties that protect fundamental human rights of individuals, including the right to life and the right to seek legal redress, both of which are being exercised by the rainforest communities.
“A simple arbitral award … cannot obligate judges to do violence to the human rights of the citizens of the country where it sits,” said the panel.
A representative of the rainforest communities was pleased with the decision, which she said protects the independence of Ecuador’s courts and ensures that a private investor treaty cannot trump the fundamental human rights of ordinary citizens. The trial was held in Ecuador only after Chevron moved it there from U.S. federal court, promising to abide by any adverse judgment.
“The Ecuador appellate panel spoke in a way that is consistent with both Ecuador’s laws and the country’s international treaty obligations,” said Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for the rainforest communities. “It shows that Ecuador’s independent courts will not succumb to Chevron’s political pressure nor its request for special treatment.”
“After 18 years of dealing with Chevron’s bad faith and abusive litigation tactics, the rainforest communities have a final and enforceable judgment,” she added.
The Ecuador appellate court did grant Chevron’s request for an extraordinary appeal to the National Court of Justice, a process that likely will take one to two years to conclude.
The appellate ruling comes at a time when Chevron officials are furiously trying to cut a side deal with Ecuador’s government to illegally quash the environmental case, said Fajardo. The company apparently offered $1 billion to the government to end-run the legal process, an act that could expose Chevron to criminal liability under various anti-bribery statutes in the United States and other countries, he added.
The Ecuador trial court in February 2011 found overwhelming scientific evidence that Chevron deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into Amazon waterways when it operated in Ecuador under the Texaco brand from 1964 to 1992. The dumping decimated indigenous groups and caused an outbreak of cancer that could lead to thousands of deaths in the coming years, according to evidence before the court. See here and here.
A video that tells the story of the environmental disaster and of Chevron’s fraudulent cover-up can be seen here.
The amount of damages set by the Ecuador court is modest compared to the potential liability of BP in the much smaller Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, said Hinton. BP already has committed $20 billion in compensation for the Gulf spill, an amount that does not include an estimated $60 to $80 billion in additional liability from civil lawsuits now pending in U.S. federal courts.
With its options dwindling and the mistakes of its legal team mounting, Chevron has suffered another courtroom setback in its eleventh-hour attempt to block indigenous rainforest communities from enforcing their $18 billion judgment against the oil giant´s assets around the world.
A three-judge appellate panel in Ecuador on Friday ruled that a Chevron request for a special bond waiver had no basis in Ecuadorian law, thereby paving the way for the commencement of enforcement actions. Chevron has stripped its assets from Ecuador, forcing the rainforest communities to consider standard judgment collection lawsuits against the oil giant in other countries.
“We intend to do everything in our power to ensure Chevron’s management team meets the company’s legal obligations and pays the full amount of the judgment,” said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the 30,000 Ecuadorians who initiated the lawsuit against the oil giant in U.S. federal court in 1993.
“Chevron broke the rainforest of Ecuador,” said Fajardo. “Now it must fix it.”
From Gáldu
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 21, 2012 | Agriculture
By Reuters
France asked the European Commission on Monday to suspend authorization to plant Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) MON810 corn, the environment ministry said, as the country seeks to keep a ban on GM crops despite losing court rulings.
France banned in 2008 the growing of MON810 corn, the only GM crop approved for planting in the European Union, citing environmental risks.
Its highest court ruled against the ban in November, following a similar decision by the European Court of Justice last September, leading the government to say it would look at all ways to maintain the freeze on GM planting.
The French government’s request to the EU executive was based on “significant risks for the environment” shown in recent scientific studies, the ministry said in a statement.
EU governments are divided over authorising GM crop cultivation, with some countries like France reluctant to allow them in view of public hostility.
Denmark, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, is seeking to revive stalled talks on allowing individual countries to decide on whether to allow GM crops.
The stalemate over GM crops has frustrated crop farmers and biotech companies, most of which have scaled back research on such varieties in Europe.
From dawn.com: http://www.dawn.com/2012/02/21/france-asks-eu-to-suspend-monsanto-gm-corn-approval.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 18, 2012 | Repression at Home
By Reuters
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday handed a victory to corporations and a political advocacy group by allowing them to spend freely before Montana’s 2012 elections, a follow-up case to the court’s major campaign finance ruling two years ago.
The justices granted a request from the three plaintiffs to put on hold a December decision by the Montana Supreme Court that upheld a century-old state law banning independent corporate campaign spending.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the Montana decision contradicted the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling two years ago that gave corporations the constitutional free-speech right to spend freely to support or oppose candidates for federal office.
The Montana Supreme Court ruled the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two years ago did not control the outcome because the Montana law was different and justified by the state’s interest in preventing corporate corruption and influence in politics.
The Supreme Court’s order cleared the way for corporations, unions and other groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on ads and other political activities designed to influence voters.
Montana’s primary elections are on June 5 and general elections are in November.
“While I’m disappointed that for the first time in 100 years Montanans won’t be able to rely on our corporate spending ban to safeguard the integrity of our elections, I am encouraged that the Supreme Court will give this careful consideration,” Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock said in a statement.
“For more than a century, anyone has been able to participate in Montana elections – even out-of-state corporate executives. All we required is that they used their own money, not that of their stockholders, and they disclosed who they are,” Bullock added.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice Stephen Breyer, cited the experience in Montana and elsewhere since the ruling two years ago and said it was difficult to maintain that corporate spending does not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.
She said an eventual appeal in the Montana case will give the court an opportunity to consider whether the ruling two years ago should continue to hold sway “in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance.”
The next step in the case will be for plaintiffs to file their appeal with the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the state court ruling.
There has been a massive increase in corporate spending during the political campaigns ahead of the 2012 elections, mainly due to the ruling in 2010.
The Supreme Court case is American Tradition Partnership v. Attorney General of Montana, No. 11-A762.
From The Raw Story: https://web.archive.org/web/20120630092140/http://www.rawstory.com:80/rs/2012/02/18/supreme-court-allows-montana-corporation-election-spending/
