Steven Donziger: Eco-Justice Hero
Steven Donziger -- unknown to many and vilified by his corporate opponents -- is one of the most heroic environment and civil rights heroes of the modern era. History will place Donziger along-side Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, Vandana Shiva, and other heroes of human rights and environmental resistance to corporate power and arrogance.
We live in an era of vast ecological decline and deplorable social disparity. Steven Donziger has devoted his life to setting these injustices right. Eight years ago, Donziger led a legal team that won the largest legal judgement in history for human rights and environmental violations, a 9.5-billion-dollar verdict against the Chevron Corporation for massive oil pollution in Ecuador's Amazon Basin. Following this verdict, Chevron refused to pay, threatened the plaintiffs with a "lifetime of litigation" if they attempted to collect, and -- according to internal Chevron memos -- launched a retaliatory litigation campaign to "demonize" Donziger and impoverish him so that he could no longer work on the case.
Lawyer Steven Donziger with his indigenous clients in Ecuador, whose land was destroyed by Chevron’s toxic waste. Thirty years later, Chevron has paid nothing in compensation and has attacked the victims and their lawyer with retaliatory SLAPP lawsuits.
To evade paying the damages, Chevron attacked Donziger in a US court before a pro-corporate and biased U.S. judge Lewis Kaplan. To create a plausible case, Chevron paid a witness $2 million and prepped him for 53 days to claim in Kaplan's court that Donziger had bribed a trial judge in Ecuador. No corroborating evidence has ever been presented, the witness later admitted he lied, and a forensic examination of the trial judge's computers proved that the witness lied.
The corporate-friendly Kaplan accepted this false testimony, from a bribed witness, allowing Chevron to sue Donziger in the U.S. for a record-breaking $60 billion, attempting to bankrupt him. Chevron's retaliatory attacks on Donziger and his clients, the victims of Chevron's pollution, was about to take another dark turn, as we shall see. To appreciate the vindictiveness of Chevron's attacks on Donziger, we need some historic background.
The public defender
Steven Donziger was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1961. After graduating from The American University in 1983, he worked as a journalist and founded Project Due Process, offering legal representation to Cuban refugees held in indefinite immigration detention in the US. Later, in Nicaragua, he wrote first-hand reports about the CIA-backed Contra war against the elected Sandinista government. While studying at Harvard Law School, Donziger and a classmate organized a human rights mission to Iraq -- lawyers, doctors, and public health specialists -- to document civilian casualties during the first Gulf War. Their study was adopted by the United Nations and translated into five languages. After graduating from Harvard Law in 1991, Donziger became a Public Defender, representing juveniles in Washington DC.
Then, in 1993, Ecuador's Frente de Defensa de la Amazonía (FDA) (“Amazon Defense Coalition”), representing the 30,000 victims of Chevron's oil pollution, asked Donziger to help them achieve fair compensation for what is likely the largest oil-related disaster in history. Mr. Donziger, two years out of law school, helped form a law team to represent the victims' case. It would dominate the remainder of his legal career.
One of over 900 toxic waste pits left behind in Ecuador’s Amazon basin by Texaco/Chevron oil production. Photograph by D. Ochoa, alliance/AP.
The ecological and human rights tragedy began in 1964, when Texaco (now Chevron), discovered oil in Ecuador's north-eastern Amazon Basin, known as the "Oriente." To save money, the oil company ignored routine waste regulations, dumping some 16-billion gallons of toxic wastewater into rivers and pits, polluting groundwater and farm land. Chevron's own documents later revealed that the company brazenly flouted environmental regulations to save an estimated $3 per barrel of oil produced, earning an extra $5 billion over 20 years. The company made total profits of about $25 billion in Ecuador. When Texaco/Chevron abandoned the fields, the company left behind over 900 carcinogenic waste pits, and left indigenous inhabitants and campesino farmers with destroyed land and epidemics of cancer and birth defects.
In 1993, in a New York federal court, Donziger and the legal team filed a class-action lawsuit against the company. In 2000, Chevron bought Texaco, insisted that the case be moved to Ecuador, filed fourteen sworn affidavits praising Ecuador’s courts and swearing to honour Ecuador's jurisdiction. It now appears that Chevron had no intention of keeping those promises.
At the trial in Ecuador, fifty-four judicial site inspections confirmed that Chevron caused oil contamination in violation of legal standards. The reports showed that the average Chevron waste pit in Ecuador contained 200-times the contamination allowed by US and world standards. Chevron's own environmental audits confirmed the pollution, showed that the company rarely conducted basic monitoring of its facilities, and that 38 pipelines ruptured in a single month - September 1978 - in just one oil field.
Steven Donziger in abandoned oil field, Ecuador. Photograph by Lisa Gibbons.
The illegal waste pits overflowed into streams, local drinking water became noxious, citizens became ill, many contracted cancer, and some died from exposure to the toxins. The contamination contained illegal levels of barium, cadmium, copper, mercury, lead, and other metals that can damage the immune and reproductive systems and cause cancer. Children, such as Veronica Gauman, were born with birth defects that have affected their entire lives.
In 2011, after eight years of trial and deliberations, hampered by Chevron’s dirty tricks and delaying tactics, Donziger and his team won the court case in Ecuador. The decision was confirmed by an appeals court, by the nation's Supreme Court, the Court of Cessation, and ultimately by the country’s Constitutional Court. A total of 17 appellate judges ruled unanimously that Chevron was responsible for the contamination and owed Donziger's clients $9.5 billion. Donziger then expected his clients to receive the medical attention and land reparations they had been promised. However, the defendant, Chevron, refused to pay and began a retaliatory attack on the victims and on Mr. Donziger.
"Demonize Donziger"
To attack Donziger, Chevron hired one of the world's most notorious law firms, the avowed "corporate rescue" firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher. Its litigation department is led by notorious attack-dog Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor for Rudy Giuliani. The High Court of England had previously sanctioned Gibson-Dunn and Mastro's "rescue squad" team for fabricating evidence. Judges in California, Montana, and New York had censured Gibson-Dunn for witness tampering, obstruction, intimidation, and “legal thuggery." In Ecuador, Gibson-Dunn lawyers threatened judges with jail if they ruled against Chevron. A federal judge in Oregon sanctioned Chevron after finding members of Mastro’s team used the legal process to “harass” a small non-profit organization that was assisting the villagers.
To launch the campaign to "demonize" Donziger -- as Chevron memos attest -- Mastro's team hired the Kroll private investigation company and paid them over $15 million to set up a surveillance operation that targeted Donziger, his family in Manhattan, and his supporters. Kroll CEO Daniel Karsen admitted under oath that the company had prepared reports on Donziger's personal life for Chevron’s use.
Randy Mastro the “corporate rescue” attack dog, and mastermind of the scheme to “demonize Donziger” on behalf of Chevron Corporation. Photograph: law.com.
In New York, on behalf of Chevron, the Gibson-Dunn lawyers, filed a civil RICO "racketeering" case against Donziger and two Ecuadorean plaintiffs, Secoya Indigenous leader Javier Piaguaje and farmer Hugo Camacho. The Judge Lewis Kaplan agreed to hear the bogus case, which would become one of the most notorious intimidation lawsuits ("SLAPP" suit) of all time. Prominent trial lawyer John Keker, who had represented Donziger, called the Kaplan trial a "Dickensian farce" driven by Kaplan's "implacable hostility" toward Donziger.
Kaplan's actions appeared to justify Keker's rebuke. Kaplan authorized Gibson-Dunn to subpoena and depose dozens of people who had helped fund the case, harassing innocent citizens as if raising funds to pay court expenses was illegal. The judge waived normal media confidentiality, demanding that filmmaker Joseph Berlinger turn over outtakes from his acclaimed 2009 documentary, Crude: The Real Price of Oil. A media coalition — including The New York Times, NBC, and HBO — filed a First Amendment objection with the court.
Kaplan and Chevron lawyer Mastro repeatedly insulted the courts in Ecuador. Mastro called the Ecuador courts “a sham.” Kaplan openly laughed when asked to delay until an Ecuadorian court could provide input. Kaplan then insulted the 30,000 class-action victims calling them “so-called plaintiffs.” He claimed their case in Ecuador was “not a bona fide litigation.”
Kaplan invoked a minor technicality to claim that Donziger had “waived” all attorney-client privilege, and insisted he turn over to Chevron lawyers 17-years of confidential communications with his clients. Defense attorneys called this “the most sweeping forced production of privileged documents in history.”
On the eve of the RICO trial, Chevron dropped its financial damages claim, allowing Kaplan to dismiss the jury of impartial fact-finders, so he could decide the outcome himself. “Chevron,” said Donziger, “apparently panicked at the notion of trying to sell its fraud and extortion claims to anyone other than Kaplan.” Then, the biased, corporate-friendly judge barred the defense from even mentioning anything “related to the existence of pollution in Ecuador.” The pollution, he said, was “not relevant.” Kaplan allowed anonymous witnesses from Chevron, which violated “basic legal principles,” and which defense attorneys said would “be right at home in the Spanish Inquisition.”
American Judge Lewis Kaplan accepted Chevron’s anonymous and paid witnesses, forbade any talk of Chevron’s pollution, mocked the victims, dismissed the jury, and presumed to over-rule 17 appellate judges in Ecuador, who reviewed eight years of detailed evidence documenting Chevron’s crimes.
Finally, Kaplan accepted a Chevron witness, Alberto Guerra, a disgraced former Ecuadorian judge, who had been removed from the bench for accepting bribes, and who accepted over $2 million from Chevron and the Gibson-Dunn lawyers, again in violation of legal and ethical principles. In exchange, Guerra claimed that Donziger had approved a "bribe" to an Ecuadorian judge and had written the final court ruling for the judge, which he allegedly gave to him on a computer thumb drive. No corroborating evidence was ever offered. Before another judge in a separate case, Guerra later admitted lying about these facts, and a forensic investigation of the Ecuadorian judges computer proved that he had lied. The entire story had been fabricated under the direction of Gibson-Dunn's Randy Mastro to frame Donziger so his client Chevron might evade paying the judgment.
Nevertheless, Judge Kaplan accepted Guerra's fabricated evidence and, with no jury, "convicted" Donziger of fraud in the Ecuador case. Finally, Kaplan ordered Donziger to turn over his computer and cell phone for review by Chevron. This order violated basic attorney-client confidentiality, and became the final straw for Donziger, who had suffered ridicule and persecution under this judge. To protect his clients and others who had helped with the case, and to protect basic legal principles and common decency, Donziger rightfully refused to obey Kaplan's illegal order until the court of appeals could decide the issue..
Outraged, Kaplan charged Donziger with criminal "contempt." However, the order and the contempt charge were so outrageous, that the NY prosecutor's office refused to take the case. This did not stop Kaplan, Randy Mastro, or Chevron. Kaplan appointed a private lawyer to act as the state prosecutor, and this ad-hoc "prosecutor" ordered that Donziger be placed under "pre-trial home detention" claiming that he was a “flight risk” even though he faced a minor misdemeanor charge, against which he had a strong defense.
Donziger has now been trapped in home detention for four months -- far longer than the longest sentence ever imposed on a lawyer charged with contempt. His lawyer believes he is the only person in the United States in pre-trial detention on a misdemeanor charge. Meanwhile, Donziger still has not actually been convicted of any crime. By all accounts, he appears to be a political prisoner with his captor a private corporation that managed to launder its fake evidence through a federal judge.
An historic injustice
"Mr. Donziger came to our aid at a time when our communities had been poisoned, and we were up against one of the largest corporations is the world," said Luis Yanza, cofounder and president of the FDA. "Thanks to Mr. Donziger's generous and tireless work, three layers of Ecuador courts found Chevron guilty of deliberately dumping of billions of gallons of toxic oil waste into the Amazon rainforest, destroying farmland, decimating and displacing communities, causing cancer epidemic and birth defects. Chevron has refused to pay the court-ordered compensation, and has instead set out to -- in their own words -- 'demonize' Mr. Donziger."
Mr. Donziger's lawyer, Andrew J Frisch, PLLC, has stated that "Chevron's case ... rested on the paid testimony of a witness who was paid over $1 million. He admitted to changing his story multiple times to sweeten his deal with Chevron." Frisch stated that Judge Kaplan's rulings, "have been contradicted in whole or in part by seventeen appellate judges in Ecuador and ten in Canada, including in unanimous decisions of the highest courts in both countries.
"Mr. Donziger is a person of integrity," attorney Deepak Gupta testified at Mr. Donziger's New York bar hearing. "Mr. Donziger was indisputably an advocate dedicated to helping indigenous peoples and local communities of the Amazon play equally on the same fields of civil litigation ... dominated by the Chevrons of the world. ... I have never seen a judge whose disdain for one side of the case was as palpable on the bench. ... Judge Kaplan had a great personal animosity for Steven Donziger ... a great injustice was being done."
"I did not set out to be an environmental lawyer," says Donziger. "Twenty-six years ago, as a law school graduate interested in international law, I wanted to help people and I simply agreed to seek a remedy for 30,000 victims for the destruction of their lands and water; to seek care for the health impacts including birth defects, leukemia, and other cancers; and to help them restore their Amazon ecosystem and basic dignity. I expected Chevron to fight back, and they had the opportunity to do so during the eight-year trial in Ecuador. I did not, however, expect the lengths they would go to to attack me personally, attack my family, attack their victims, and defy a legal judgement that they pay for their crimes, as proven in a court of law.”
Veronica Guaman, born with birth defects from the toxins left behind by the oil companies. Thousands of birth defect and cancer victims have received no compensation from Chevron, who has spent some $2-billion on lawyers, private investigators, PR firms, and paid witnesses to avoid paying the court-imposed compensation.
Those affected by Chevron's pollution are modest, honourable, self-reliant people. Some of them are farmers, living in small communities, others reside in forest villages, living on the fish, wildlife, fruits, roots, and other wild foods. They, of course, have no money to hire lawyers. Donziger solved that problem by getting donors and investors to buy small portions of the judgment to pay case expenses; lawyers he recruited to work on the case include leading litigators in Ecuador, the United States and Canada. “This is the first time that Indigenous peoples and impoverished farmers had access to this level of capital and legal talent to press their pollution claims, which is why they won the case and why Chevron is so terrified of the model,” said Donziger. “Chevron not only wants to win the case, they want to kill the very idea of the case."
"This case is not just about the fate of Mr. Donziger," says Simon Taylor, director of Global Witness in London, "A lasting injustice to him would 'chill' the important work of other environmental and corporate accountability advocates engaged in similar legal battles against powerful corporations. This is of particular concern, given our work on the escalating threats, and indeed in many parts of the world, escalating killings and judicial harassment of environmental defenders. "
The only fraud in this case, is that committed by Chevron’s retaliatory and corrupt attack against Mr. Donziger, their fabricated evidence, and their attacks on private citizens who have offered support of Donziger and his suffering clients.
Thus, Steven Donziger's work for the indigenous and farmer communities of Ecuador's Amazon, is work for all of us. His generosity, compassion, and unwavering perseverance provide an enduring model of citizen commitment to justice and common decency.
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Sources and Links:
FDA, Frente de Defensa de la Amazonía (“Amazon Defense Coalition”), representing the 30,000 victims of Chevron's oil pollution. FDA.
Ecuador Indigenous communities affected: ChevronToxico
Ecuador's Supreme Court unanimous judgement vs. Chevron.
Summary of evidence against Chevron found by Ecuador's courts: evidence
Environmental Impacts of Chevron in Ecuador: ChevronToxico
A Rainforest Chernobyl: ChevronToxico
Chevron's health impacts on indigenous groups: independent health studies cited by the court.
Chevron's Gibson Dunn lawyers threatened Ecuador's judges with jail
Video, Chevron in Ecuador: video on the case
"Roger Waters Tells Chevron’s New CEO to Finally Clean up Ecuador," video, Amazon Watch.
The grave of Rosa Moreno, the legendary Ecuadorian nurse, who founded and operated the only clinic dedicated to the victims of Chevron’s pollution. Rosa died of cancer in 2017. Photo by Lisa Gibbons.
"Amazon Crude" Video: 60 Minutes. (All that's left is this archive page. After pressure from Chevron, 60-Minutes deleted this video from the Internet.")
Shareholders rebuke Chevron, June 2017, Amazon Defense Coalition
How the US courts got it wrong: rebuttal, Chevron RICO case. Steven Donziger
Chevron falsification of Guerra's testimony: background and legal motion
Chevron's Star Witness Admits to Lying in the Amazon Pollution Case," Eva Hershaw, Vice News, Oct 26 2015.
Chevron's bribery and fabrication of evidence in U.S. courts to evade Ecuador judgment
"Chevron Law Firm Gibson Dunn Blasted by High Court of England For Falsifying Evidence": Chevron Pit, 2015
Gibson Dunn's Ecuador narrative crumbling; the firm's unethical tactics: The Chevron Pit
Gibson Dunn firm criticized and sanctioned by courts for crossing the ethical line.
A letter signed by over 40 US environmental and civil rights organizations (including Greenpeace, Amazon Watch, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth) stating that Chevron's tactics "targeted nonprofit environmental and indigenous rights groups ... designed to cripple their effectiveness and chill their speech."
Referral of Chevron and Gibson Dunn lawyers to DOJ by Amnesty International and other NGOs, " Amnesty International Demands Criminal Investigation of Chevron Over Witness Bribery and Fraud in Ecuador Pollution Litigation;" allegations that Chevron and U.S. Judge Kaplan used false testimony to attack the Ecuador judgment and human rights defender Donziger; makechevroncleanup.com, July 2019.
Deepak Gupta brief appealing the Kaplan RICO judgment, with an excellent fact section that covers almost the entire history of the case. Gupta Wessler, pdf, July 2014.
Mandamus Petition to recuse Judge Kaplan, Patton Boggs law firm, ChevroninEcuador.org, June 2011.
Mandamus Petition to recuse Kaplan, 2013 (resulted in argument and invitation for Kaplan to respond with his own brief): ChevroninEcuador.org.
"Collateral Estoppel," by Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson, The Harvard Law Record, December 6, 2019: How the New York courts and bar have attempted to silence Steven Donziger and hide the facts of Chevron's Ecuador pollution.
Letters from lawyers Andrew J. Frisch, Rita M. Glavin, Brian P. Maloney, and Sareen K. Armani, in support of Steven Donziger, to Judge Preska (appointed by Kaplan) in criminal contempt case seeking relief from Donziger home detention, Andrew J. Frisch PLLC.
"Chevron’s SLAPP suit against Ecuadorians: corporate intimidation," rexweyler.ca, 11 May 2018. More details about the civil RICO case, the bizarre rulings of Judge Kaplan, and the illicit tactics of Chevron, Randy Mastro, and the notorious Gibson-Dunn law firm.
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