Bringing ‘pressure to bear’

The following letter was filed as an exhibit in a New York court by Chevron. It was recently ordered publicly disclosed by the judge in the ongoing case in which Steven Donziger has been seeking to enforce an Ecuadorian court judgment fining Chevron US$8.6 billion for environmental damage in Ecuador. Several subsequent rulings outside Ecuador have refused to enforce the judgment against Chevron, with courts ruling that the original order was secured by Donziger’s legal team using fraudulent means, including judicial bribery. Donziger denies these were more than “errors in judgment.” In this letter, sent last year, University of Calgary law professor Kathleen Mahoney suggests to Donziger that a conference in Canada, with the right people attending, could help his case against Chevron — if there were funding available for such an event. The conference, “Indigenous Solutions for Environmental Challenges,” takes place this weekend in Banff. Mahoney and Donziger are both scheduled to present.

Hi Steven,

Thanks for your note. I have as you know a few ideas that could perhaps be of some assistance going forward with the case, one of which is a conference at my university with national and international experts.

The emphasis would be on restorative justice and would bring together experts from a variety of backgrounds — law, environment, history, business, philosophy, climate change specialists, etc., including of course some of the claimants themselves.

The concept would be to re-frame the case, assuming resolution in the form of a win-win settlement If we could get representation from the oil industry here in Calgary, the epicentre of the oil industry in Canada, that would, I think, bring significant pressure to bear on Chevron to come to the table instead of following their scorched earth policy which does not fly well in Canada.

Let me know what you think. I have raised the concept with a few of my senior colleagues at the law faculty and they think it would be a great idea. I would need some significant funding to pull it off. I think if we got funding, we could work on a timeline of having (the) conference in the spring. I could get a lot of law student volunteers I am sure. We also have public interest law clinic that is a possible resource. Let me know what you think.