Indigenous communities in Latin America have suffered an especially oppressive history of dispossession and exploitation. Only the source of oppression has changed: if ‘indios’ were once enslaved to ‘latifundistas’, they are still today mistreated and kept from their own subsistence by multinational companies (MNCs). We have entered an era of ‘natural resource wars’, fueled by capital incentives for foreign investment, at the detriment of indigenous communities and the protection of their human rights. As Global Security editor at Fair Observer, Nishtha Chugh, commented: “Natural resources are becoming the new powerful key to defining geopolitics and securing economic and strategic interests.”
The Texaco/Chevron class action lawsuit on dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste in the Ecuadorean rain forest and its rivers, is a perfect example of the issue of resource extraction and its drastic effects on the environment and indigenous livelihoods. Water contaminated by crude oil has caused many health issues for Ecuadoreans in this region: skin diseases, birth defects, brain damage, and cancer rates among other health problems have been greatly exacerbated in the last thirty years of drilling. Help from Amazon Watch, indigenous rights activists and lawyers such as Steven Donziger and Pablo Fajardo brought this lawsuit to the Ecuadorean judiciary in 2009. Though the Ecuadorean appeals court found Chevron guilty, it could not force the multinational oil company to pay the demanded sanctions.
Nevertheless, on Oct. 9, Chevron Corp lost its bid to block a 19 billion dollars environmental judgment in the US Supreme Court and to reinstate an injunction against enforcement of the Ecuadorian ruling. Though Chevron will continue to defend against the plaintiff’s lawyers’ attempt to enforce the Ecuadorean judgment, the fact that the Supreme Court is denying the company’s appeal plays a pivotal role in setting precedence for similar cases in international environmental law. Reuters recently reported, “Oil companies are watching the case closely because it may affect other cases accusing companies of polluting the areas where they operate.”
With the rise of neoliberalist policies implemented under dictatorial rule in Latin American countries during the 1970-80s, MNCs have been able to become as economically powerful as states. In some cases, even more. Some of the U.S.’ mega corporations have revenues larger than the GDP of individual countries. For example, Nike’s revenue for 2012 is predicted to be 24.128 billion dollars, which is bigger than Paraguay’s GDP from 2011 of 23.88 billion dollars. This has generally affected the jurisdictional power of legal systems and courts over private interests, but the Supreme Court’s ruling on Chevron’s activities in Ecuador gives substantial hope for a potential end to corporate impunity and related environmental degradation. In this spirit, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Jade Vasquez, claims, “The Chevron Ecuador case is a landmark victory for indigenous groups every where. The verdict against Chevron has produced a number of positive implications for other poor indigenous citizens of the developing world.”
Still, judicial empowerment is only a fragment of the bigger equation for stopping MNCs’ unethical extractive practices. Privatization of natural resources poses a serious question regarding the Ecuadorean government’s willingness to regulate foreign resource extraction and to protect indigenous land ownership and cultural customs. Resource extraction is not just an international law concern, but also a daily burden and cycle of suffering for local indigenous communities. In reality, private interests cannot be dissociated from economic and environmental policies in Ecuador. The result is rampant criminalization of environmental protest and indigenous activists. According to Ecuador’s Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities, there are currently 189 cases of people accused of terrorism and sabotage by the government, for rallying and organizing against the privatization of natural resources. Visiting professor and research fellow at Amherst College, Manuela Picq, agrees: “In Ecuador, ‘terrorists’ are indigenous peoples from the Amazon and the Andean highlands fighting to preserve access to water in their communities (…) as ‘terrorists’, they are labeled as enemies of the state, and arrested – by the very president that claimed leftist credentials and staged his inauguration in overtly ethnic style”. This phenomenon of criminalization of protest surrounding land conflicts and resource dispossession is not uncommon in other Latin American countries with a strong indigenous population. The Chilean press often portrays the Mapuche, the largest indigenous group in the country, as guerrillas who threaten state order.
Though the Chevron case suggests significant progress in indigenous rights and international environmental law, governments still covertly allow financial crimes and environmental degradation. Some might argue that Latin America’s largely Leftist governments aren’t sufficiently listening to indigenous demands and promoting judicial action on environmental justice issues, even though strong indigenous identification originally legitimized and facilitated their right to governance.
Ecuador’s economic and environmental policies need to be more consistent with greater international legal pressure and court hearings before indigenous communities stop being systematically disadvantaged and victimized by fraudulent corporate behavior. The solution involves much more than just a change in legal culture and mobilization of civil society, or even a general admittance to the return to ethno-politics in the Latin American political landscape. The more ambitious goal is that the Ecuadorean judiciary will eventually acquire the jurisdictional power and standing, as well as the cultural and political backing, to fully and legally admonish corporate impunity.
