Ecuador Communities Target Chevron's Secret Investor Arbitration In New Court Filing, Says Amazon Defense Coalition

Petition Accuses Oil Giant of Trying to Deny Human Rights to Thousands of Rainforest Inhabitants

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Indigenous rainforest communities from Ecuador who recently won an $18 billion judgment against Chevron for environmental damage  have filed suit  before a renowned international human rights court seeking an order that would prevent the oil giant from using a secret arbitration to violate their legal rights.

The Ecuadorians filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights strongly criticizing Chevron's "egregious misuse" of the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty ("BIT") to violate human rights protections. They are seeking an order requiring Ecuador's government to protect their right to life, physical integrity, health, a fair trial, and equal treatment under the law as guaranteed by the American Declaration of the Rights of Man and other international human rights treaties.

The petition was filed against Ecuador's government because Chevron is seeking an order from the private investor arbitration panel mandating that the country's President freeze the court proceedings until the BIT panel can rule, a process which normally takes three years.  Such an order would violate Ecuadorian and international law as well as the human rights protections that the Commission is sworn to uphold, said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs in the underlying environmental case.

The Commission, located in Washington, D.C., hears claims for emergency relief from individual human rights victims and derives its authority from the the multilateral international treaty that created the Organization of American States, of which Ecuador and the United States are members. Any order from the Commission is binding on the government against which it is issued.   

"The threats are serious and urgent," the plaintiffs wrote in their petition, referring to their own plight living near extensive levels of toxic oil contamination in the Amazon rainforest for almost 50 years.  An Ecuadorian court in 2011 found Chevron liable for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon when it operated under the Texaco brand from 1964 to 1992, causing dramatically increased rates of cancer and decimating indigenous groups. See here and here.

"The idea that an arbitral panel would even contemplate ordering a sovereign state to violate its human rights obligations is repugnant not only to the substance of international human rights law but to the very core of the international legal order," the petition added.