Minute 4:28
"Chevron has shifted its assets from Ecuador and has announced that it will not pay the judgment. It is doing everything in its power to avoid responsibility... So now that Chevron broke the rainforest in Ecuador, what is it going to do to fix it? To this day Chevron continues to claim it bears no responsibility for the destruction and deaths its operational practices have caused.... Numerous soil samples taken from Chevron's well sites still show they contain high levels of cancer-causing toxins. Meanwhile acting like a fugitive from justice, the people of Ecuador's Amazon are being forced to continue their fight in countries where Chevron's assets can be lawfully seized and used to pay for a clean-up, safe drinking water and medical care"
"It's the end of sovereignty, the end of our independence; we have become colonies with these rulings from international courts."
There has been a growing trend of transnational corporations capitalizing on investment treaties to subvert the sovereignty of the countries in which they operate. The Transnational Institute recently documented that a small circle of corporate lawyers that some refer to as an "inner mafia" – just 15 lawyers have decided 55% of all disputes – receive up to $1,000 per hour per lawyer to sit on the panels.
Over the last 15 years these arbitrations have increased more than tenfold with 38 in 1996 and 450 in 2011. In over a third of those cases corporations have sued countries for over $100 million. Some of these arbiters are former board members of multinational corporations that have sued developing nations. They are agents of what writer Naomi Klein has dubbed "disaster capitalism," targeting countries in the Global South and capitalizing on nations in the midst of crisis. They sue governments when corporations believe that governments have treated them unfairly by adopting environmental protections or public health laws.
However, the Chevron panel is going even further and taking the unprecedented step of trying to use an investment treaty to nullify the ruling of a sovereign domestic court that Chevron delayed for years. What makes the attempt even more shameless is that Ecuador was not even party to the 19-year court case; the plaintiffs were the 30,000 indigenous and campesino people who are still suffering from the toxic consequences of Chevron's contamination in the Amazon.
Chevron is asking the panel to demand that Ecuador pays the $19 billion judgment as a punishment for not ruling in Chevron's favor. As an earlier Amazon Watch publication
noted, "one of the wealthiest corporations on the planet with revenues of $240 billion in 2011 is seeking a taxpayer-funded bailout in Ecuador where the per capita income is $4,000 per annum. In other words, it wants the victims of its contamination to pay for the clean-up of their ancestral lands – sort of like executing someone before a firing squad and sending their family an invoice for the bullets."
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If Citizens United has given corporations an oversized voice, then corporate arbitration panels ensure that they are the only voice. In short, corporate arbitration panels are Citizens United on steroids, uprooting the executive, legislative, and – in the case of Chevron – even the judicial sovereignty that define an independent state.
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http://amazonwatch.org/news/2013/0304-chevrons-kangaroo-court-citizens-united-on-steroids
Chevron Corporation : Ecuador To Host ALBA Meeting On Opposing Corporate Lawsuits
03/01/2013| 01:37pm US/Eastern
By Mercedes Alvaro
QUITO, Ecuador--Ecuador's Foreign Ministry said Friday that a number of Socialist nations grouped in an organization known as ALBA will hold an April meeting in Ecuador to discuss strategies on how to contest lawsuits made by multinational corporations.
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Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has called several times for Latin-American unity to avoid what he calls "abuses of the multinational corporations." He has charged that the corporations view Latin American countries as "colonies."
A meeting of the ALBA political council this week in Caracas called on governments in the region to show solidarity with Ecuador in its multibillion-dollar legal battle with Chevron Corp. (CVX) over environmental issues.
A report on Ecuador's state newswire Andes said that Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro has offered support to Ecuador in its legal battle with Chevron.
http://www.4-traders.com/CHEVRON-CORPORATION-12064/news/Chevron-Corporation-Ecuador-To-Host-ALBA-Meeting-On-Opposing-Corporate-Lawsuits-16375231/
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