This is a really heartwarming story about how corporate polluters stick together through thick and thin.
I recently wrote about 16 international law experts who filed briefs with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York registering their professional opinion about US Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan’s “worldwide preliminary injunction” barring enforcement of the $18 billion Ecuadorean verdict against Chevron. In those experts’ view, Kaplan’s injunction is not only “unlawful” but also likely to have “negative consequences for the transnational rule of law.”
Those experts included Burt Neuborne, legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU; Donald K. Anton of the Australian National University College of Law; and other international law experts from Finland, Italy, South Africa, Spain, and the US.
Not to be outdone, Chevron fired back with briefs of its own. Who were the “experts” who came to Chevron’s defense? A veritable who’s who of multi-national corporate polluters, human rights abusers, and their apologists.
Shell Oil, Dow Chemical, Dole Food Company, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and the National Association of Manufacturers submitted briefs in defense of Chevron last week.
It’s a little like if Exxon were to come out and say: “Our oil spill in Montana won’t affect anyone. We have testimony here from BP proving that oil spills are harmless!”
Sure can’t imagine why Shell, Dow, and Dole have a vested interest in making sure large corporations can’t be held accountable for the damage they do to communities and the envinronment around the world.