The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague Rules Against Ecuador, Favors Chevron
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has ruled in favor of oil giant Chevron and declared Ecuador guilty of violating a bilateral investment treaty signed with the United States in 1997, of withholding justice from the company, and for not providing Chevron with “just and equitable” treatment... The court also ruled that Ecuador will have to pay economic compensation to the corporation that dumped 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into waterways and open pits in the Ecuadorean Amazon between 1964 and 1992, affecting over 30,000 Indigenous people and Campesinos in the area...Chevron requested that Ecuador assume the US$9.5 billion that the provincial court of Sucumbios in Ecuador sentenced Chevron to pay to the affected communities...Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ratified the ruling against Chevron, but compensation to the affected communities seems unlikely. The amount Ecuador will need to pay Chevron will be settled within the next 90 days...The government of President Lenin Moreno announced...that the state will sue former President Rafael Correa and his government officials if Ecuador lost the international arbitration process. The current government is accusing Correa of failing to defend the country’s interests correctly and spending money on the international campaign “The Dirty Hand of Chevron,” which according to the government sought to “manipulate national and international public opinion.”...