International Groups Condemn Detention and Fanciful Charges
International anti-corruption and human rights groups have strongly condemned the detention of leading Nigerian anti-corruption activist Olanrewaju Suraju of HEDA, one of the first non-governmental groups to expose corruption allegations surrounding the acquisition of the OPL 245 oil field by oil multinationals Shell and Eni.
Joint Statement on the Shell/Eni Verdict from Global Witness, The Corner House, HEDA and Re:Common
Environmental and social justice groups have condemned Italy’s anti-corruption laws as unfit for purpose following the acquittal of oil multinationals Shell and Eni on international corruption charges in Milan. Thirteen other defendants were also found not guilty.
Landmark Judgment in Case of Okpabi and Others v Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDS) and Another
On Friday 12 February 2021, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Court of Appeal was wrong to refuse villagers from the Ogale and Bille communities in the Niger Delta permission to sue Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) in London for damages allegedly caused by numerous oil spills from Shell oil pipelines.
The Appeal Court had previously ruled that the English courts have no jurisdiction to hear the case because RDS was found not to exercise control over its Nigerian subsidiaries.
Interview with Dr Jeff Miley
In a wide-ranging interview with activist academic Dr Jeff Miley of Peace in Kurdistan, Nicholas Hildyard discusses the climate crisis, solidarity, self-determination and the politics of environmentalism:
https://youtu.be/J7uh15mKBs4
European Development Bank Funding of Feronia-PHC Oil Palm Plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Jutta Kill
Campaigners from across Europe and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have published a new report chronicling one of the most scandalous failures of development bank investment in agriculture. The report details how Europe's largest development banks poured upwards of US$150 million into an oil palm plantation company in the DRC despite the company's land conflicts with communities and allegations of serious human rights violations and opaque financing made against it.
A California Crime Caper
Larry Lohmann
The bestselling Los Angeles crime novelist James Ellroy is known for his entertaining re-imaginings of US history between 1940-1970. His novels reflect his dark vision of what police, politicians, bureaucrats, criminals, movie stars and intellectuals were really thinking and doing behind the scenes, but never appeared in the official record. Ellroy calls it the news that was “unfit to print.”
Permanent People's Tribunal Session on Human Rights, Fracking and Climate Change
Alberto Acosta Espinosa, Lilia América Albert Palacios, Andrés Barreda, Upendra Baxi, Gill H. Boehringer, Maria Fernanda Campa, Louis Kotzé, Larry Lohmann, Francesco Martone, and Antoni Pigrau Solé
In 2018, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal -- established in 1979 as a continuation of the Russell Tribunals on Vietnam (1966-67) and Latin America (1973-76) -- was requested by community organizations and academic groups to formulate an Advisory Opinion on fracking and other unconventional oil and gas extraction techniques.
In writing their Opinion, the judges considered material from two years of investigations and regional tribunals in a number of countries. The final session heard summary testimonies via a virtual platform on 14-18 May 2018.
Nicholas Hildyard
The World Bank has invested almost a quarter of a billion dollars in Seven Energy, an oil and gas company operating in Nigeria. Months before the first investment was made, the then Governor of Nigeria's Central Bank alleged that the company's flagship contract involved operating a scheme that was looting billions of dollars in state revenues. A number of the people associated with the contract are now either on the run or charged with money laundering.
Larry Lohmann
Effective research and other action in the field of environment and law requires an understanding of how profoundly both have changed under neoliberalism. The growth of the neoliberal state amid productivity crisis and the move to a more financialized, rent-based global economy has been accompanied by sweeping legal innovations relating to property, trade, investment, rent and criminality as well as an expansion in the mass of written law and in the gaming of legislation.
Memoranda to the Joint Committee on Human Rights
The Corner House
The Joint Committee on Human Rights of the UK Parliament requested evidence for its inquiry into business and human rights on the State's duty to protect against human rights abuses by businesses; corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and the need for individuals to have effective access to remedies when their human rights are breached. The Corner House submission to the Committee focused on the policies and practices of the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) in the context of the state's duty to protect human rights. The Committee subsequently called for supplementary evidence on the government's Draft Bribery Bill and the Industry and Exports (Financial Support) Bill, which The Corner House provided.
in Defence of Community Land and Religion against the Trans Thai-Malaysian Pipeline and Industrial Project (TTM) 2002-2008
Chana activists and others
For many years, Southern Thai Muslim communities have been fighting a destructive gas development backed by Barclays and other foreign banks that has violated their human, religious, environmental and land rights alike. In words and pictures, this book (now in an updated and revised edition) recounts their struggle.
The Greening of Intolerance
Sarah Sexton, Nicholas Hildyard and Larry Lohmann
Far-right groups in Britain are increasingly using environmental and social justice concerns to argue against immigration. This is part of a clear political strategy to make racist ideas and goals seem more respectable. Whether they like it or not, environmentalists are therefore being increasingly drawn into debates on immigration, refugees and asylum seekers. To counter this strategy, environmental groups need to link with those who have to deal with racism every day as a matter of strategy, process and structure.
Ethnic Discrimination and Conservation in Thailand
Larry Lohmann
The intersections between international nature conservation and ethnic politics are of serious and growing concern to many social movements in Southeast Asia. This paper offers evidence that international environmentalist practices interact with local and national conditions to advance the structural work of ethnic discrimination and racism in Southeast Asia. The racist outcomes of these practices do not flow exclusively from unprofessionalism, faulty science, irrationality, immorality or incorrect beliefs -- and anti-racist strategy has to accommodate this insight.
Adaptation and Reaction to Globalisation
Mark Duffield
Many internal wars in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, far from representing societal breakdown, can be seen as a rational response on the part of rulers (and would-be rulers) to ensure their economic and political survival in a context of globalisation and the changing nation-state.
Racial Oppression in Scientific Nature Conservation
Larry Lohmann
13. Some strains of environmentalism treat “cultures” as fixed, closed systems with impermeable boundaries. Racism is neither a theory nor a collection of beliefs, sentiments or intentions, but rather a process of social control which functions to block inquiry and attempts to live with difference. Illustrated with a case study from Northern Thailand.
Les Conflits Ethniques Seraient ils Naturels?
Nicholas Hildyard (traduction: C. Bertrand)
Au sein du mouvement écologiste occidental une aile conservatrice importante a développé, dans un souci de stabilité sociale, des conceptions sur la "culture" qui placent la cause profonde des "conflits ethniques" dans des antagonismes anciens, définitifs, implacables et invétérés entre populations. Ces conceptions sont très proches de celles de la Nouvelle Droite qui, de plus en plus, s'approprie le langage de la "différence" culturelle pour promouvoir un "racisme différencialiste". Il est important que les groupes progressistes s’opposent à cette manupulation politique d'éthnicité des environnementalistes conservateurs, ou de la Nouvelle Droite.
Ethnic Conflict and the Authoritarian Right
Nicholas Hildyard
11. “Ethnic conflicts” are not rooted in ancient antagonisms or fixed cultural differences. Yet the authoritarian Right in Europe is increasingly framing its racist agenda in terms of “cultural differences” -- a discourse that chimes in disturbing harmony with that of many Greens, whose preoccupation with “tradition” can lend itself to a politics of exclusion. The need for progressive groups to distance themselves -- in actions as well as words -- from the Right’s “cultural” agenda is urgent.
How Opinion Polls and Cost-Benefit Analysis Synthesize New “Publics”
Larry Lohmann
Opinion polls and cost-benefit analysis, like public relations, attempt to construct new, simplified “publics” which are friendly to bureaucracies, politicians and corporations. The success of these attempts is limited by popular resistance at many levels. For a related article, see http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/toward-different-debate-environmental-accounting.
Larry Lohmann
This opinion piece shows how environmental activists, ecological economists, development experts and deep green theorists tell self-serving and one-sided stories about Noble Savages, Eastern religions, “traditional communities” and ordinary householders. This "Green Orientalism" both arises from and perpetuates power imbalances. It must be constantly challenged by stories told from other points of view.
