Lawyers are asking the District Court of Paris to enforce a conviction in a scandal related to the use of a pesticide DBCP (Nemagon and fumazone) in banana plantations in Nicaragua. It is almost $ 1 billion in damages that are claimed.
For years, the big names in chemistry: Occidental Chemical Corporation, Shell Oil Company and Dow Chemical Company which merged in 2017 with DuPont have sold DBCP marketed under the name of Nemagon and Fumazone.
This pesticide was used to kill small worms (nematodes) that attacked banana roots. A devastating product for the health of users had pointed out studies carried out by the manufacturers themselves in the 1950s: cancers, fertility disorders, congenital malformations ...
The product was mixed with water intended for watering plantations or dispersed on banana plantations by air. Farm workers worked without protection. "I did it at night. Now I am dead. This product prevented me from having children. They will not be here to watch over me. " Says Diego Fernando Lopez. The testimony of this 68-year-old Nicaraguan was fired by his lawyer Mc Kee and presented at a press conference in Paris. "Think of him as a neighbor. This case does not concern a distant country but the environment. This case is a crime against humanity ... " , denounces this lawyer specializing in environmental issues and based in Florida.
After a lengthy trial won in appeal and before the Supreme Court of Nicaragua in December 2006, the three US companies were sentenced to pay 805 million dollars to the 1234 victims who had attacked them in court. But this sentence has still not been enforced, stress their lawyers: Tony Lopez of the Bar of Managua, Suart Smith of the Louisiana Bar and Robert Mc Kee of the Florida Bar. Dow Chemical, Shell and Occidental Chemical have left the country and sold all their assets in Nicaragua.
With the support of a French lawyer, the bâtonnier Pierre-Olivier Sur, a procedure in exequatur and thus aiming to make carry out this condemnation was deposited Monday, November 5 before the court of high instance of Paris. The proximity of Nicaraguan law largely inspired by French civil law, particularly for the responsibility as well as the importance of the legal place of Paris justify this choice explains Olivier Olivier Sur.
The case should be examined at the beginning of the year (February or March). If Parisian judges win the case against French, American and Nicaraguan lawyers, these damages and interest, nearly a billion dollars with interest, could be claimed from the three companies throughout the European Union. The victims are not limited to Nicaragua. These products have been used in banana plantations in Central America but also for pineapple growing. The case resembles that of Chlordecone, another health scandal related to pesticides that has affected the French West Indies. As with chlordecone, manufacturers have obtained the right to continue to sell this product when it was banned from marketing in the country of origin.
Prohibited in the United States in 1977
DBCP was banned in the United States in 1977 but sold in Central America until 1983. "What is incredible is that shortly after it was put on the market in 1956, the chemical industries were aware of the results. of an animal study they had funded that demonstrated the dreaded testicular toxicity of DBCP. Observations that have since been confirmed in many studies. Unfortunately, it was not until the chance discovery, 20 years later in 1977, of many cases of sterility among the workers of an American factory that this risk is recognized for man, " observes Professor Alfred Bernard of the University of Leuven.
For Olivier Olivier: "The environmental and health impact of pesticides and endocrine disruptors deserves a judicial response to the stakes of the next decades, including France, the founding country of the European Union, must make a duty to wear in the eyes of the world .