• Historic verdict in the UK: pollution is a key factor in the death of a child

  • Genoa, pollution alert for oil spill

Share

January 29, 2021 When they thought about starting the lawsuit, maybe they didn't believe it either.

Four Nigerian farmers against Shell, an oil multinational.

David and Goliath.

However, they had seen the villages of Goi, Oruma and Ikot Ada Udo, in the Niger Delta region, taken away from oil.

The fields where they cultivated, the area where they had been fishing for 15 years.

So in 2008 they sued Shell, alongside them, the environmental organization Friends of the Earth.



During this long legal battle two of them died, but the others continued unabated.

The verdict concerns the losses that damaged the lands of Goi and Oruma, in the Niger Delta region.

After 13 years, the court ruled that Shell Nigeria "is responsible for the damage caused by the oil spills. Shell Nigeria must compensate the farmers for the damage."

The amount of the damage will be determined later, it has been added.



Prior to this verdict, a court of first instance had ruled that Shell should have paid compensation for a spill, but that the parent company could not be held liable by a Dutch court for the actions of its Nigerian subsidiary.

In 2015, however, the Hague Court of Appeal overturned that ruling and ruled in favor of Dutch jurisdiction on the case.



NGOs: disastrous pollution

In 2008, when the cause of the 4 Nigerian farmers began, Amnesty International, with the Center for the Environment and Human Rights and Development, estimated a sum of one million dollars that Shell would have to pay to clean up the Ogoniland area, in the Niger delta



The UN report

The United Nations environmental program, UNEP, has repeatedly checked the disastrous environmental conditions of the Niger delta.

The oil pollution clean-up in the area is considered one of the largest and longest in the world.

Areas that did not appear to be polluted were compromised underground.

The infrastructures used for the exploitation of oil are still inadequate.