"UN experts accuse top oil firms of rights violations over Nigerian asset sales", 2 September 2025

In a series of letters dated July 2 and published on Sunday, a working group made up of UN rapporteurs on human rights and environmental issues, said the four companies’ divestments of onshore assets in Nigeria had lacked transparency and proper accountability, which could hinder clean-up efforts and compensation for damage caused by their operations.

“The subsidiaries’ operations in Nigeria have caused widespread environmental damage for decades,” the letters read, saying this had threatened numerous basic rights including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, the right to safe drinking water and the right to access remedy...

Tobechukwu Diolu, a Niger Delta-based environmental defender, said the UN experts’ position was “a validation” of what communities in the region have been saying for years. Some hard-hit Niger Delta communities have turned to the courts to seek compensation. Earlier this year, a British court began hearing a case brought by the Bille and Ogale communities against London-headquartered Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary, which was taken over by Renaissance Africa Energy Company. 

In a written response to the UN group’s letter, Shell said it had “embedded respect for human rights” in its business principles... It said the sale of its Nigerian subsidiary to Renaissance was approved by the federal government after an “extensive review” and due diligence. It added that Renaissance (led by former Shell staff) will remain accountable for its share of commitments.... including “conducting any clean-up and remediation” of spills.

Italy’s Eni “strongly rejected” the UN experts’ accusations saying .... the sale of its onshore assets to Oando was supported by the Nigerian government and followed an in-depth assessment of the buyer’s capacity, which regulators verified. Eni added that at the time of the sale, it had remediated "100% of the spills" on its JV assets except where sites were inaccessible for security reasons, and had also met its statutory decommissioning and abandonment obligations under Nigeria's PIA.

The UN experts did not receive a response from ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies. Nigeria’s Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Climate Home News.

Letters were also addressed to the governments of Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, the US and France and to Nigeria’s government.

The UN panel said it was of “grave concern” that the divestments were conducted “without following a human rights-based approach and against international law obligations”, and thereby risk becoming a yardstick for divestments elsewhere.