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Chevron (CVX) in the Amazon – Oil Rights or Human Rights? Texaco's legacy, Chevron's responsibility
"Our health has been damaged seriously by the contamination caused by Texaco. Many people in our community now have red stains on their skin and others have been vomiting and fainting. Some little children have died because their parents did not know they should not drink the river water."The human rights situation of Indigenous peoples and environmentalists in Ecuador continues to be a serious concern for Amnesty International. For over four decades, Indigenous communities have witnessed multinational oil companies cut through the Ecuadorian Amazon and their ancestral lands in search of the country's vast petroleum resources. Testimonies by members of these communities, verified by independent health studies and reports (including "Amazon Crude" by Judith Kimerling) have described how oil companies have left dead rivers, road-scarred forests, polluted air, and daily discharges of millions of gallons of toxic waste in their wake that are affecting the daily lives of the communities in the area.
Operating in a region of the rain forest known as the ‘Oriente' both transnational and domestic oil companies threaten the survival of Indigenous populations as well as those who seek to protect their communities and the environment. Over the past four decades, a succession of U.S. petroleum companies including Texaco (now owned by Chevron Corporation), Occidental Petroleum, ARCO, and Maxus Energy Corporation, among others, have come to Ecuador in search of oil. Environmental and human rights defenders claim that these companies have left behind a trail of destruction, posing a serious danger to people's survival.
Northern Amazon:
The Chevron Pollution and Three Decades of Neglect
Texaco, currently owned by Chevron Corporation (CVX), began prospecting
for oil in Ecuador in 1964, becoming the first company to discover
commercial quantities. Subsequently, Texaco's joint venture with
Petroecuador, in which the U.S. company was an operating partner, set
the standards for operations in the region. According to the 1993
report "Crudo Amazónico" (Amazon Crude) by the environmental lawyer
Judith Kimerling, from 1972 until it left Ecuador in 1992, Texaco
intentionally dumped more than 19 billion gallons of toxic wastewaters
into the region and was responsible for 16.8 million gallons of crude
oil spilling from the main pipeline into the forest. By comparison, the
infamous Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in 1989 spilled 10.8 million
gallons off the coast of Alaska. The report alleges that these actions
contaminated both the soil and the groundwater of the communities in
the area and will continue to threaten the economic and cultural bases
of Indigenous peoples' survival.
Photo by Josh Schacter.According to the authors of the 1999 "Yana Curi" Report, which details the impact of oil development on the health of the people of the Ecuadorian Amazon, living in proximity to oil fields seems to have increased the risk of residents developing health problems. For instance, based on the characteristics of the population, cancer rates are statistically higher in the oil producing village of San Carlos than should be expected. Another study published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health points out the relationship between higher spontaneous abortion rates and living in the proximity of contaminated water streams. In some streams, the levels of oil chemicals like hydrocarbon concentrations was as high as 280 times the permitted levels in the European Community. Meanwhile, Chevron (CVX) has not only refused to acknowledge any link between the public health hazards and the environmental problems caused by its drilling policies in the Ecuadorian Amazon, but has also refused to clean up the pollution, claiming that a ‘clean up' agreement with the Ecuadorian Government has released it of any further liability. The company has further denied direct compensation to the affected communities for threatening their health and their economic and cultural survival by polluting their environment.
Violated Human Rights
These reports point out serious human rights abuses against the people
living in the area where Texaco operated. As set forth in the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
their rights to the highest attainable standard of health, to an
adequate standard of living and to water and sanitation, have been and
are still being violated.
Corporate inaction ignores the fact that human rights responsibilities extend beyond states. Since 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has provided a common standard of achievement, which means that every individual and every organ of society bears responsibility for the universal and effective recognition and observance of the rights and freedoms in the Declaration. In 2003 the UN Norms on the responsibilities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights were adopted by the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and transferred for discussion to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The preamble to the UN Norms notes that "transnational corporations and other business enterprises, their officers and persons working for them are also obligated to respect generally recognized responsibilities and norms contained in United Nations treaties and other international instruments." While the UN Norms do not yet have legal status as law, they reflect the emerging consensus view, recognizing that if international obligations can be placed on individuals and states, then corporations too have character under international law.
Shareholder Activism
For the third year in a row, Amnesty International USA, along with
other concerned Chevron (CVX) shareholders, have submitted a resolution
on Texaco's toxic legacy in Ecuador. This year, the resolution
calls on the company to report the total costs relating in any way to
the health and environmental consequences of hydrocarbon exposures and
Chevron's remediation of Texaco drilling sites in Ecuador. The
shareholder proposal was filed by Trillium Asset Management, a
Boston-based socially responsible investment firm that manages more
than $900 million in assets for individual and institutional clients,
and joined by the New York State Common Retirement Fund, holding 10.2
million shares in Chevron (CVX) currently worth more than $603 million.
A similar proposal was presented at Chevron's Annual Shareholder
Meetings in April 2004 and 2005, both times garnering 9% approval from
investors, more than enough to allow us to resubmit it this year. Read
the press release announcing the filing, as well as an update from the 2005 shareholder meeting.
