THE HAGUE, Jan 29, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – A Dutch court will hand down its
verdict on Friday in a long-running case pitting oil giant Shell against four
Nigerian farmers who accuse it of causing widespread pollution.
After 13 years of legal wrangling, an appeals court in The Hague will rule
on the farmers’ demands for the Anglo-Dutch firm to clean up devastating oil
spills in three villages in the Niger Delta and pay compensation.
The case, backed by the Netherlands arm of environment group Friends of the
Earth, is the first time a Dutch company has been held liable for actions by
its foreign subsidiary.
The case has dragged on so long that two of the Nigerian farmers have died
since it was first filed in 2008, as Shell argued that the matter should not
be heard in the Netherlands.
The ruling is expected at 1000 GMT.
“After almost 13 years, we will hear whether Nigerians will finally receive
justice or whether Shell has succeeded in completely shirking its
responsibility for the pollution,” Donald Pols of Friends of the Earth
Netherlands said in a statement.
“For the inhabitants of the Niger Delta it is crucial that their land is
cleaned up and their lost crops and livelihoods are compensated by the guilty
party: Shell,” he added.
Shell has always blamed the spills on sabotage and said it has cleaned up
with due care where pollution has occurred.
– ‘New era’ –
The farmers first sued Shell in 2008 over pollution in their villages Goi,
Ikot Ada Udo and Oruma, in southeastern Nigeria.
A lower court in the Netherlands found in 2013 that Shell should pay
compensation for one leak, at Ikot Ada Udo, but ruled that Shell’s parent
company in the Netherlands could not be held liable in a Dutch court for the
actions of its Nigerian subsidiary.
But in 2015 the Hague appeals court ruled that Dutch courts did indeed have
jurisdiction in the case.
The appeals court will on Friday decide on the substance of the case:
whether Shell is to blame for the oil leaks and did it do enough to prevent
them and future spills.
“A victory would herald the beginning of a new era in which large
multinationals such as Shell can no longer go about their business lawlessly
but are accountable for their entire operations, including overseas,” said
Pols.
At a hearing last year lawyers for the farmers showed gushing and burning
oil spills as well as villagers dragging their hands through water sources,
their hands streaked with the substance afterwards.
Nigeria was the world’s ninth-largest oil producer in 2018, pumping out
volumes valued at some $43.6 billion (37 billion euros), or 3.8 percent of
total global production.
In a separate case in the Netherlands, the widows of four Nigerian
activists executed by the military regime in the 1990s have accused Shell of
complicity in their deaths.
Shell also faces a landmark legal bid to force it to meet emissions targets
in the Paris climate accords, brought by several environmental groups in the
Netherlands led by Friends of the Earth in 2019.