2013-05-24T13:35:15-04:00 Martin Horwood http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=martin-horwood Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Martin Horwood Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1390601 2012-04-01T19:00:00-04:00 2012-06-01T05:12:01-04:00

Martin Horwood http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-horwood/
With its vast financial resources, the oil giant has employed hundreds of lawyers and legal assistants from dozens of law firms worldwide to fight the claims of the indigenous groups of Ecuador. It launched an international smear campaign against the victims of its contamination, calling them con men and extortionists. But criticism of Chevron's tactics in the case is mounting.

The real victims of course are the people who bathe and drink the contaminated water and live among the toxic mess that remains today in their rainforest home. Thanks to the Herculean efforts of the lawyers representing these indigenous groups and the good sense of both the American and Ecuadorian courts, Chevron's campaign is falling apart.

Having fought this lawsuit for 18 years, they are running out of legal options. Both the trial and appellate courts in Ecuador, where Chevron insisted the case be heard, have found Chevron liable for $18 billion in damages.

It is time for Chevron to give up the fight and practice what it preaches in its multi-million dollar 'We Agree' ad campaign that promises to "support the communities" where Chevron drills.

From 1964 to 1990, Chevron dumped 16 to 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water in the waterways of the Amazon and built over 900 huge, unlined pits to store left over crude. Many of the 64,000 contamination tests taken during the trial, most of them Chevron's, revealed dangerous levels of toxins that still affect the drinking and bathing water of the Ecuadorian rainforest peoples today.

As soon as the evidence pointed to Chevron, the company fought back - not by arguing the merits of their conduct in the Amazon - but by accusing the Ecuadorians and their advisors of committing fraud. Company lawyers attempted to convince U.S. courts to sit in judgment on Ecuador's judiciary and block enforcement of the $18 billion judgment. The U.S. courts are having none of it. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York shut Chevron's latest campaign down earlier this year.

Now the oil giant is turning to an international tribunal, demanding that Ecuador's government stop enforcement of the claimants' well-earned judgment under treaty provisions between the U.S. and Ecuador. Under tribunal rules, the Ecuadorians have no say in the matter and are blocked from presenting evidence of Chevron's misconduct. Ecuador's government and its courts have made clear that treaty provisions do not trump international law or the country's constitution, which does not allow the government to interfere with the court system, as in the U.S. and U.K. It is outrageous that treaty provisions are being abused to help Chevron escape justice.

Despite victories by the Ecuadorians in U.S. and Ecuador courts, Chevron still has the resources and political influence to tough it out - the plaintiffs estimate they have spent at least USD 500M in legal and other fees fighting this to date.

The international community needs to stand up and tell the company that enough is enough. Chevron has promised to fight the Ecuadorians until "hell freezes over, and then skate it out on the ice." I'm sure they mean it.

This is why I'm taking the case to my colleagues on the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tribal Peoples, to see what we can do to highlight it and help the long-suffering indigenous peoples of Ecuador.

Now is the time to call Chevron to account, not only in the Court of Law but also in the Court of Public Opinion and to rally all stakeholders - politicians, investors and the public - to pressure Chevron to do the right thing. Just as BP is doing in the United States.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1143725 2011-12-12T12:39:14-05:00 2012-02-11T05:12:01-05:00

Martin Horwood http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-horwood/
Contrary to the whoops and cheers of the eurosceptics, British business and sensible commentators are waking up to the reality that Britain is now more isolated in Europe than at any time in the last forty years and at risk of being excluded from the heart of European decision-making at an absolutely critical time. Far from guaranteeing safeguards for the City and the British financial services sector, we have been left in a position where a new fiscal stability club of 26 might start to develop institutions and make rules which pan out very badly for British business and British jobs.

Sarkozy has been accused of intransigence and of manoeuvring against the interests of the City of London. Perhaps that is part of a French president's job description. The real surprise is why every other EU nation - even those who are not in the Eurozone and including famously eurosceptic Denmark - sided with Sarko and not with our Prime Minister.
It's not as if the demands we were making were that unreasonable:

Protections for national financial regulation that would actually have enabled tougher rules like the Vickers proposals to be implemented without challenge; higher capitalisation targets for banks which would have made all European banking safer. There were none of the loopier eurosceptic demands for repatriation of powers or rewriting of social legislation in the middle of a crisis. So why did even this modest negotiating position fail?

One explanation, albeit unlikely, is that Mr Cameron was a poor negotiator on the night or that British diplomatic effort was inadequate. At the very least he may now regret the throwaway leadership election pledge to leave the main centre-right political grouping, the European People's Party. This excluded him from a crucial pre-summit pow-wow of right wing European leaders in Marseilles, where he might have wooed many natural sympathisers.

Perhaps European leaders were genuinely exasperated with Britain's single-minded defence of the City of London, so happy to profit from dealing in euros but apparently unwilling to lift much of a finger to help save the currency from collapse.

Or is the explanation simpler than that? That the endless torrent of xenophobic eurosceptic rhetoric had so alienated other European leaders that when push came to shove we didn't have a friend in the room. When some Tory MPs compared David Cameron's position in Brussels to that of Neville Chamberlain at Munich in the days before the summit, you can imagine any last ounce of sympathy for the British position evaporating completely.
Liberal Democrats won't throw our toys out of the coalition pram over this. There is too much at stake: from the continuing need for a stable government to clear up the mess left to us by the last government, to delivering on promises like the income tax break for the lower paid, or the pupil premium or the greening of the economy.

We are not about to put all that at stake.

But Liberal Democrat ministers will now have to work much harder with Conservative colleagues to rebuild trust and relationships within Europe. As the new treaty process develops, we need to make sure that Britain's influence over events is not lost altogether. Lib Dem negotiating skills, contacts and positive commitment will be crucial to that process.

But we have a right to ask how exactly we got into this situation and demand some explanations.
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