Consequences of Seeking Environmental Justice: The Lawyer Who Took on Chevron and Paid the Price

In February 2011, the environmental and human rights lawyer, Steven Donziger, won a landmark judgment against Chevron Corporation, on behalf of 30,000 Indigenous people residing in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. Chevron was found liable for causing toxic oil pollution that destroyed Indigenous lands and rivers. The said pollution destroyed rivers and streams used by the Indigenous people of Lago Agrio to drink water. The water contamination by Chevron contained illegal levels of metals that are known to damage the immune and reproductive systems in humans, thereby leaving some of the world’s poorest people with generations of birth defects and a cancer epidemic. This post was originally published on the Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights and Social Justice website on December 1, 2021. The original post can be accessed via the Archived Link button above