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amnesty international
'Long-Overdue' Trial to Begin After Decades of Shell Polluting Nigeria
"The spills have terribly affected the Bille community," said one Nigerian plaintiff. "Our ecosystems are dead. Our livelihood depends on fishing."
Feb 10, 2025
After years of delay tactics, Shell is set to go on trial in London this week over claims that hundreds of spills caused by the fossil fuel giant have destroyed Nigerian communities and violated their residents' rights to a clean and healthy environment.
Critics say Shell has managed to avoid accountability for despoiling the environment in and around Bille and Ogale communities in the Niger Delta. Ten years ago, residents of these communities sued Shell, claiming inhabitants' livelihoods, homes, and environment had been devastated by Shell oil spills, which killed fish and vegetation and left thousands of people without access to clean drinking water.
As Bille and Ogale communities attempted to fight London-based Shell in U.K. courts, the company repeatedly delayed the case, claiming it was not legally liable for the pollution caused by its subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. However, in 2021 the U.K. Supreme Court ruled that the High Court should hear the case, and last December, the country's Court of Appeals allowed it to be heard.
"The Bille and Ogale communities of Nigeria's Niger Delta oil-producing region have been living with the devastating impact of oil pollution for so long," Amnesty International Nigeria director Isa Sanusi said in a statement Monday. "Oil companies, particularly Shell, exposed them to multiple oil spills that have done permanent damage to farmlands, waterways, and drinking water—leaving them unable to farm or fish."
Ten years ago, residents from the Bille and Ogale communities in Nigeria claimed their livelihoods had been destroyed by hundreds of oil spills caused by Shell. The pollution caused widespread devastation to the local environment and left thousands without access to clean drinking water.
— Amnesty International (@amnesty.org) February 10, 2025 at 4:00 AM
"Water contamination and other impacts affect even babies that are in some cases born with deformities," Sanusi added. "These communities have been deprived of a good standard of living. They deserve justice and effective remediation, and I hope this long-overdue trial goes someway to providing it."
In 2023, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled in a separate but related case that it was too late for Nigerian plaintiffs to sue a pair of Shell subsidiaries over a 2011 spill of an estimated 40,000 barrels of oil.
Amnesty International has called the Niger Delta "one of the most polluted places on Earth."
Accountability has been rare, but in 2021 Shell agreed to pay $111 million for oil spills in the Niger Delta. This, in a year in which the company reported adjusted 2020 earnings of nearly $5 billion.
Last December, Nigeria's Ministry of Petroleum Resources approved Shell's sale of $2.4 billion in offshore and shallow-water assets to Renaissance Group, a Nigerian firm, marking the end of nearly a century of Shell's operations in the African nation. The Nigerian government is also currently in talks with local communities about resuming oil production in Ogoniland, which has been devastated by spills over the past half-century.
Responding to the U.K. Court of Appeals' greenlighting of the case set to be heard later this week, Bille Chief Bennett Okpoki said in December that "this has taken a very long time as Shell has been delaying for around 10 years."
"The spills have terribly affected the Bille community," he continued. "Our ecosystems are dead. Our livelihood depends on fishing. After the oil spills, we have found it very difficult to survive and people are not finding it easy. We hope it continues, so we can have a final victory over Shell, at least for them to come and do the cleanup, to put us in the place we were before."
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'Small But Important Win': Court Blocks Trump From Sending 3 Immigrants to Guantánamo
"Our clients refuse to be used as pawns in this twisted game of punishment theater," said a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Feb 10, 2025
A federal court late Sunday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from sending three Venezuelan immigrants to Guantánamo Bay, where the U.S. president is planning to jail tens of thousands of people in new detention facilities that critics have likened to concentration camps.
The decision from Judge Kenneth Gonzales of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico came in response to a request for a temporary restraining order filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and other advocacy organizations on behalf of three Venezuelan men currently being held in U.S. immigration detention in New Mexico.
"I fear being taken to Guantánamo because the news is painting it as a black hole," said Abrahan Barrios Morales, one of the petitioners. "I also see that human rights are constantly violated at Guantánamo, so I fear what could happen to me if I get taken there."
Baher Azmy, CCR's legal director, called the judge's decision Sunday a "small but important win for clients otherwise bound to the latest iteration of the legal black hole."
"Will the judge allow the executive branch to smuggle away individuals who have a pending case to a military prison on a remote island where there is no guarantee their rights will be respected or that they will even be able to make a phone call to their lawyers or their loved ones?"
The Trump administration has already moved dozens of people it characterized as Venezuelan gang members from El Paso, Texas to Guantánamo, the site of a notorious U.S. military prison that Amnesty International has described as "a symbol of torture, rendition, and indefinite detention without charge or trial."
The New York Timesnoted over the weekend that the administration "has not released any of their identities, though they are believed to all be men, nor has it said how long they might be held at the island outpost."
"So far, none of the first arrivals have been taken to an emerging tent city that has been set up for migrants," the Times reported. "Instead, they have been housed in the military prison."
According to CCR, its clients "came to the United States seeking asylum, and each passed an initial Credible Fear Interview with U.S. asylum officers by establishing a credible fear of persecution or torture in their home country" of Venezuela.
Jessica Vosburgh, a senior staff attorney at CCR, said in a statement Sunday that "our clients refuse to be used as pawns in this twisted game of punishment theater."
"The question before the court is simple," said Vosburgh. "Will the judge allow the executive branch to smuggle away individuals who have a pending case to a military prison on a remote island where there is no guarantee their rights will be respected or that they will even be able to make a phone call to their lawyers or their loved ones? The answer must be a resounding no."
Rebecca Sheff, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of New Mexico, warned that "transferring immigrants from Otero County to Guantánamo is a blatant attempt to obstruct their legal rights by placing them thousands of miles from their families and attorneys."
"We're outraged that New Mexico and El Paso, against the backdrop of the horrific cruelty of family separation in the first Trump administration, are once again being used as a testing ground for dehumanizing and dangerous immigration policies," Sheff added.
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ICC Condemns Trump Sanctions as UN Human Rights Office Demands Reversal
"The rule of law remains essential to our collective peace and security," said a United Nations spokesperson.
Feb 07, 2025
The International Criminal Court on Friday denounced U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order sanctioning the ICC in response to arrest warrants issued for Israeli leaders over their devastating 15-month military assault on the Gaza Strip.
"The ICC condemns the issuance by the U.S. of an executive order seeking to impose sanctions on its officials and harm its independent and impartial judicial work," the tribunal said in a statement. "The court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world, in all situations before it."
"We call on our 125 states parties, civil society, and all nations of the world to stand united for justice and fundamental human rights," added the Hague-based ICC, which was established by a global treaty known as the Rome Statute to prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
A spokesperson for the United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Ravina Shamdasani, also slammed Trump's order targeting the ICC, which she called "a central institution of the international criminal justice system and fundamental to ensuring justice and achieving accountability for the most serious crimes."
"We fully support the independent work of the court—across all situations within its jurisdiction," Shamdasani said Friday. "We deeply regret the individual sanctions announced yesterday against court personnel, and call for this measure to be reversed."
"The court should be fully able to undertake its independent work—where a state is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution, as stated in the Rome Statute. The court is an essential part of the human rights infrastructure," she added. "The rule of law remains essential to our collective peace and security. Seeking accountability globally makes the world a safer place for everyone."
Since Trump signed the order—which specifically cites the court's November warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant—civil society groups around the world have also spoken out against the U.S. president, who previously targeted ICC officials with sanctions during his first term.
"This reckless action sends the message that Israel is above the law and the universal principles of international justice. It suggests that President Trump endorses the Israeli government's crimes and is embracing impunity," said Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard, a former U.N. special rapporteur, in a statement.
The "aggressive" and "vindictive" order, she continued, "is a brutal step that seeks to undermine and destroy what the international community has painstakingly constructed over decades, if not centuries: global rules that are applicable to everyone and aim to deliver justice for all. The sanctions constitute another betrayal of our common humanity."
"At an historic moment when we are witnessing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Russia's aggression against Ukraine, and the global rule of law coming under threat from multiple fronts," she argued, "institutions like the court are needed more than ever to advance human rights protections, prevent future atrocities and secure justice for victims."
Trump's sanctions will not only "embolden perpetrators," Callamard warned, "they will negatively impact the interests of all victims globally and those who look to the court for justice in all the countries where it's conducting investigations, including Darfur, Libya, the Philippines, Palestine, Ukraine, and Venezuela."
"The sanctions are also an affront to 125 member states who have collectively resolved that the court must be able to effectively pursue justice—which means it must be able to undertake independent judicial functions, such as issuing arrest warrants, for example, against Benjamin Netanyahu or Vladimir Putin," said added, referring to the Russian president.
"Governments around the world and regional organizations must do everything in their power to mitigate and block the effect of President Trump's sanctions," Callamard concluded. "Through collective and concerted actions, ICC member states can protect the court and its staff. Urgent action is needed, like never before."
While some governments, such as Hungary, have backed Trump's move, others have joined the chorus of condemnation and reiterated support for the ICC.
"We reaffirm our continued and unwavering support for the independence, impartiality, and integrity of the ICC," 79 nations—including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—said in a joint statement reported by Reuters. "The court serves as a vital pillar of the international justice system by ensuring accountability for the most serious international crimes, and justice for victims."
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