Obama on Wrong Side in Shell Oil Human Rights Case
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“Shell Oil, which profits most from the Ogoni people’s degradation and oppression, claims it is just a bystander, an innocent party.”
When Shell Oil walked into the U.S. Supreme Court building, this week, claiming that it is not responsible for the torture and murder of Nigerians in its oil fields in the Niger River Delta, the Dutch corporation had a friend in the courtroom: the Obama administration. The U.S. Solicitor General’s office was there to urge the High Court to rule in Shell’s favor
In Shell’s case, 12 Nigerians charge the oil company with being an accomplice to torture, extra judicial executions and crimes against humanity. One of the plaintiffs is the widow of Dr. Barinem Kiobel, who was executed Ken Saro-Wiwa
“Shell claims it is not a person.”
At the U.S. Supreme Court, Shell Oil argued that the United States should not “impose our law onto foreign countries.” What an outrageous position! Shell Oil imposes itself on the people of the Niger Delta, unleashing what is arguably the worst environmental disaster on Earth, and then asks for legal immunity.
Shell Oil also argues that it cannot be sued under the Alien Tort Statue, because it is not a person. Two hundred years ago, when the law was written, nobody thought corporations were people. Later, corporations fought for and got recognition as a kind of legal person in the United States, allowing them to claim the inalienable rights of actual human beings. But now, under these circumstances, Shell Oil claims it is not a person
The Alien Tort Law was used to compensate Holocaust survivors who had been used as slave labor by corporations that worked with the Nazis. Shell Oil’s operations in Nigeria have also sown a holocaust, for which there must be no impunity.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
In this week’s segment, we cover state repression and regime change efforts. While the corporate media parroted state narratives about a popular uprising in Iran, all evidence indicates that recent…
Mnar Adley is the founder and director of MintPress News, an independent media outlet. She joins us from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Donald Trump's ICE enforcement is used as domestic police…
Nina Farnia is an assistant professor at Albany Law School in New York. She is a legal historian, focusing on the role of modern imperialism in U.S. law and politics, and a member of the Anti-…
U.S. funding for a study on the timing of hepatitis B vaccine doses in infants in Guinea-Bissau violates accepted standards of medical ethics.
Donald Trump and other U.S. presidents are gangsters who will sometimes steal from their own crew. The Greenland heist is but the latest example, as the Denmark colonizers cry that they were robbed…
