February 28, 2012|By Chris Klint | Channel 2 News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Shell Oil is requesting a temporary restraining order against Greenpeace to protect its planned offshore drilling operations in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, after protesters with the environmental group delayed the departure of a crucial drillship from a New Zealand port Thursday.

According to documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, Shell claims the order is necessary to protect its personnel and equipment drilling wells on the Outer Continental Shelf this summer, as well as to prevent Greenpeace from violating state and federal laws. read more

By Robert Barnes, Wednesday, February 29, 1:07 AM

A majority of the Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed disinclined to allow human rights advocates to sue corporations in American courts over allegations that the companies might be complicit in atrocities committed overseas.

About a dozen Nigerians charge that Shell Oil’s parent company aided and abetted the Ni­ger­ian government in torturing and killing people protesting the oil company’s operations in the Ogoni region during the 1990s.

But conservative justices seemed skeptical that a more-than 200-year-old U.S. law formulated at the time of the country’s founding allowed such suits against corporations. The law allows “aliens” to bring civil lawsuits for acts that violate the “law of nations.” read more

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum over whether corporations can be sued for human rights violations overseas. The plaintiffs filed suit in the United States under the Alien Tort Statute, a law enacted by Congress in 1789, that empowers the federal courts to hear cases by foreigners bringing a civil suit for wrongs committed “in violation of the law of nations.”

Should the Alien Tort Statute hold corporations liable for heinous crimes? Is there a more effective way to do this? read more

WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (Reuters) – A number of Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism on Tuesday that corporations can be sued in the United States for alleged complicity in human rights abuses abroad, a case with important financial, legal and international implications.

The high court during arguments considered limiting the reach of a 1789 U.S. law that was largely dormant for nearly two centuries, but used in the past 20 years by foreign victims to sue multinational corporations for abuses committed overseas. read more

By Bob Van Voris

Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that the company can’t be sued by Nigerians seeking damages for torture and murders committed by their government in the early 1990s.

The high court in Washington is considering whether companies are exempt from two statutes imposing liability for human-rights violations. Shell, Europe’s biggest oil company, argued today that the Alien Tort Statute, which dates to 1789, can’t be used to sue corporations. The Nigerian plaintiffs claim there’s nothing in the law that limits liability to individuals. read more

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Ben Amunwa

Below is a short extract from the letter:

Today the US Supreme Court hears Kiobel v Shell, a case that alleges Shell aided and abetted human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by the Nigerian military against the Ogoni people from 1992 onwards. Twenty years later, Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta continue to be linked to human rights violations committed by government forces and other armed groups, as well as result in extensive environmental devastation. read more

“Philip Watts, the reserves fraudster who was later forced to resign as Shell Group Chairman with a $18.5 million pension pot, helped to organise and pay for a virtual private army.  Shell engaged in militarised commerce in a conspiracy with the military regime in Nigeria.”

By John Donovan

Royal Dutch Shell crimes against humanity in Nigeria.

The case for the defence, authored by Shell’s paid historian, Keetie Sluyterman, who has had full access to Shell confidential internal information, will be published here later today, subject to legal intervention by Shell lawyers. We have already received threats by Royal Dutch Shell Plc Company Secretary & General Counsel Corporate, Mr Michiel Brandjes, in relation to publication of information from this source material. read more

If corporations have rights then surely they have responsibilities too. Yet in a case before the Supreme Court Feb. 28, lawyers for petroleum giant Shell will argue that corporations are immune from laws that prohibit complicity in human rights violations and crimes against humanity. As a human rights lawyer who has helped survivors of torture, rape and slavery sue their corporate abusers for over 15 years, I thought I had heard every defense in the book. But this morning, I’ll be sitting in the Supreme Court listening to Shell’s lawyers argue to our nation’s highest court that companies should get to have it both ways: rights when it benefits them, but no responsibilities for abuse. read more

The Moscow Times: It gained some LNG production after it muscled in on Royal Dutch Shell's Sakhalin project...

Editor’s note: Marco Simons is the legal director at EarthRights International (ERI), a nongovernmental organization dedicated to protection of human rights and the environment worldwide. Marco oversees ERI’s Legal Program, which aims to hold corporations and other actors accountable for human rights and environmental abuses, and has represented victims in several transnational human rights cases in U.S. courts, including Doe v. Unocal, Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. (Shell), Bowoto v. Chevron, and Doe v. Chiquita. He has co-authored numerous amicus briefs for ERI, including four briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court. read more

A proposal to tap the world’s largest oil-shale deposits in the western U.S. by heating rocks until petroleum sweats out has become the latest election-year conflict over energy policy.

The Sunday Times: Business Section Page 10: February 26, 2012

Xena’s squeeze on Voser

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL must have thought it had done the hard work when it won permits from the US government to drill for oil in Alaska.

Not so fast. There are still some fearsome opponents to be conquered, including Xena, the warrior princess. Fans of schlock TV will remember Xena, a kind of female Conan the Barbarian, who once threatened to crush a foe’s head “like a peanut between the thighs of doom”.

Last week Lucy Lawless, the Kiwi actress who played Xena, led a group of activists as they boarded a drilling rig in the port of Taranaki, New Zealand. The rig was due to sail to the Arctic to start drilling this summer. read more

COMING SOON: ON THE DAY FOLLOWING THE OSCARS, “THE THIGHS OF DOOM” – CO-STARRING THE NORMALLY MILD-MANNERED ROYAL DUTCH SHELL CEO, PETER VOSER – WILL APPEAR HERE LATER TODAY…

Now posted: Xena’s squeeze on Voser

Some of the claims were; violation of customary international law for human right abuses, corporate bullying, aiding and abetting the Nigerian government in committing genocide against the Ogoni people, bribery and corruption

STATEMENT ISSUED BY NATIONAL UNION OF OGONI STUDENTS, USA
(NUOS INTL. USA)
3046 W. 77TH STREET (ANNEX)
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60652
Ph. 773. 863. 1115
Fax. 773. 572. 4544
February 27, 2012

SHELL OIL COMPANY CULPABLE IN ESTHER KIOBEL, ET AL V. ROYAL DUTCH PETROLEUM COMPANY, ET AL

The corporate human rights abuse case, Esther Kiobel, et al V. Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company Plc., coordinated by the National Union of Ogoni Students’ USA in 2002 makes its way to the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court presided over by Justice John Roberts will adjudicate in the case on Tuesday February 28, 2012 after reviewing an earlier decision by the Appeal Court. read more

In 2009, Shell paid $15.5 million to settle a separate lawsuit filed in New York under the Alien Tort Statute and alleging that the oil giant was complicit in the executions of Saro-Wiwa and the others.

Justices to weigh foreigners’ suits against companies

By Mark Sherman: Associated Press Sunday, February 26, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — Corporations and human rights groups are squaring off in a Supreme Court fight over whether foreign victims of war crimes, killings and other atrocities can haul multinational companies into American courts and try to prove they were complicit in the abuses and should pay damages.

The rights groups say a 223-year-old law gives foreigners such as Nigerian-born Charles Wiwa the right to try to hold businesses accountable for the roles they play in atrocities. Energy and mining companies have been among the most frequent targets of these lawsuits in recent years following efforts by the military in Indonesia, Nigeria and elsewhere to clamp down on protests against oil and gas exploration and development. read more

n 2001, it faced controversy when it was alleged to have employed an operative to infiltrate environmental groups on behalf of BP and Shell.