Quito, September 4th, 2015. After eight months of waiting, the Supreme Court of Canada ratified the second instance ruling of the Ontario Court of Appeal, which recognises that the Canadian court does have the jurisdiction to allow the Ecuadorian plaintiffs to pursue a lawsuit to enforce the ruling they won against the Chevron oil company. The judgement confirms the corporation’s liability for the environmental damages it had caused in the territories of the 30,000 indigenous and peasant people in Ecuador.
The judgement passed by the Ontario Court of Appeal recognised that the Ecuadorian victims could execute the ruling that obliges Chevron to pay USD 9.5 billion in damages for the contamination of the Amazon region in Ecuador. The parties received notice of the ruling on December 17th, 2013.
For Humberto Piaguaje, Coordinator of the UDAPT (Union of Peoples Affected by Texaco), this is one of the most significant rulings that the Ecuadorian plaintiffs have won, after the original verdict handed down in their favour and its respective ratifications. With this judgement, “after 22 years, [the affected peoples of Ecuador] can pursue action to enforce the ruling against Chevron and begin to restore our territories immediately”, the affected peoples’ leader said.
The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision constitutes one of Chevron’s biggest defeats, according to Piaguaje. It shows that “the Canadian justice system effectively works and all countries are independent and sovereign. This means that it will not be possible for the oil corporation to extend the ill-fated ruling of a U.S. court to avoid having to pay damages in sovereign courts”. Piaguaje is referring to the sentence handed down by New York judge Lewis Kaplan that, despite lacking due process, ruled that there was collusion involving the affected peoples in Ecuador to “extort” funds from the corporation.
It is worth highlighting that the judges of the Ontario court recognised that “after all these years, the plaintiffs deserve to have the recognition and enforcement of the (Ecuadorean) judgment heard on the merits in an appropriate jurisdiction. At this juncture, Ontario is that jurisdiction.”
Pablo Fajardo, the Ecuadorians’ lawyer, explained that the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling “will allow the verdict handed down by [Ecuador’s] National Court of Justice to be upheld every time that, due to Chevron’s lawsuits before courts in the United States, an impediment to the execution of the Ecuadorian verdict in this country, where the oil corporation’s headquarters are located, is raised”. Fajardo recalled that in Canada, Chevron has over 15 billion dollars in assets, which is enough to restore one of the most important zones for maintaining balance in the global ecosystem. UDAPT members, including Mariana Jiménez, celebrated the ruling. Mariana has led the organisation since its foundation and considers that the Canadian court’s decision to accept the enforcement process is “a light at the end of the tunnel” after 22 years of litigation. Mariana admits that even though the “process has been long and torturous”, she has never lost hope “because it is a just cause”. UDAPT’s assistant coordinator, Oscar Herrera, took advantage of the ruling to launch a call to the international community to continue uniting in this battle, which is of great importance for the defence of the human rights of affected peoples around the world.
Contact information: Unión de Afectados y Afectadas por las Operaciones de Texaco (UDAPT)
Quito Ecuador
Telephone: (593) 2 273533
Email: casotexaco@gmail.com
María Eugenia Garcés: 0999225516 Nancy Rodríguez: 0999949337
