Latest news with #JosephWintersGrist
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Greenpeace to challenge $660M court judgement
Sachi Kitajima Mulkey and Joseph WintersGrist A jury in North Dakota ordered Greenpeace to pay more than $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace in 2019, alleging that it had orchestrated a vast conspiracy against the company by organizing historic protests on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in 2016 and 2017. In its lawsuit, Energy Transfer Partners accused three Greenpeace entities — two in the U.S. and one based in Amsterdam — of violating North Dakota trespassing and defamation laws, and of coordinating protests aimed to stop the 1,172-mile pipeline from transporting oil from North Dakota's Bakken oil fields to a terminal in Illinois. Greenpeace maintained it played only a minor supporting role in the Indigenous-led movement. 'This was obviously a test case meant to scare others from exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful protest,' said Deepa Padmanabha, a senior legal adviser for Greenpeace USA. 'They're trying to buy silence; that silence is not for sale.' Legal and Indigenous experts said the lawsuit was a'textbook' example of a 'strategic lawsuit against public participation,' known colloquially as a SLAPP suit, a tactic used by corporations and wealthy individuals to drown their critics in legal fees. They also criticized Energy Transfer for using the lawsuit to undermine tribes' treaty rights by exaggerating the role of out-of-state agitators. The three Greenpeace entities named in the lawsuit — Greenpeace Inc., a U.S.-based advocacy arm; Greenpeace Funds, which raises money and is also based in the U.S.; and Greenpeace International, based in the Netherlands — are now planning their next moves, including an appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court and a separate countersuit in the European Union. As part of a previous appeal to move the trial more impartial court, Greenpeace submitted a 33-page document to the state Supreme Court explaining that the jurors in Morton County, North Dakota — where the trial occurred — would likely be biased against the defendants, since they were drawn from the same area where the anti-pipeline protests had taken place and disrupted daily life. The request included results from a 2022 survey of 150 potential jurors in Morton County conducted by the National Jury Project, a litigation consulting company, which found 97 percent of residents said they could not be a fair or impartial juror in the lawsuit. Greenpeace also pointed out that nine of the 20 final jurors had either 'direct personal experience' with the protests, or a friend or family member with direct personal experience. Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School, said the chances that the North Dakota Supreme Court will overturn the lower court's verdict are 'probably less than 50 percent.' What may be more likely, he said, is that the Supreme Court will reduce the 'outrageous' amount of money charged by the Morton County jury, which includes various penalties that doubled the $300 million in damages that Energy Transfer had originally claimed. 'The court does have a lot of discretion in reducing the amount of damages,' he said. He called the Morton County verdict 'beyond punitive. This is scorched Earth, what we're seeing here.' Depending on what happens at the North Dakota Supreme Court, Parenteau also said there's a basis for appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, based on the First Amendment free speech issues involved. But, he added, the move could be 'a really dangerous proposition,' with the court's conservative supermajority and the precedent such a case could set. A federal decision in favor of Energy Transfer could limit any organizations' ability to protest nationwide — and not just against pipelines. Amsterdam-based Greenpeace International, which coordinates 24 independent Greenpeace chapters around the world but is legally separate from them, is also fighting back. It countersued Energy Partners in the Netherlands in February, making use of a new anti-SLAPP directive in the EU that went into effect in May 2024. Greenpeace International is only on the hook for $132 million of the more than $600 million charged against the three Greenpeace bodies by the Morton County jury. Its countersuit in the EU wouldn't change what has happened in U.S. courts. Instead, it seeks to recover costs incurred by the Amsterdam-based branch during its years-long fights against the Morton County lawsuit and an earlier, federal case in 2017 that was eventually dismissed. If the damages awarded against Greenpeace International in U.S. courts aren't overturned through appeals, then it can potentially claim those same millions back from Energy Transfer in the EU case. Greenpeace International's trial will begin in Dutch courts in July and is the first test of the EU's anti-SLAPP directive. According to Kristen Casper, general counsel for Greenpeace International, the branch in the EU has a strong case because the only action it took in support of the anti-pipeline protests was to sign an open letter — what she described as a clear case of protected public participation. Eric Heinze, a free speech expert and professor of law and humanities at Queen Mary University of London, said the case appeared 'black and white.' 'Normally I don't like to predict,' he said, 'but if I had to put money on this I would bet for Greenpeace to win.' While Greenpeace's various entities may have to pay damages as ordered by U.S. courts, the result of the case in the EU, Casper said a victory would send an international message against 'corporate bullying and weaponization of the law.' Padmanabha said that regardless of the damages that the Greenpeace USA incurs, the organization isn't going away any time soon. 'You can't bankrupt the movement,' she said. 'What we work on, our campaigns and our commitments — that is not going to change.' In response to request for comment, Energy Transfer said the Morton County jury's decision was a victory for the people of Mandan and 'for all law-abiding Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law. That Greenpeace has been held responsible is a win for all of us.' Nick Estes, an assistant professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota and member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe who wrote a book about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, said the case was about more than just punishing Greenpeace — it was a proxy attack on the water protectors at Standing Rock and the broader environmental justice movement. He said it showed what could happen 'if you step outside the path of what they consider as an acceptable form of protest.''They had to sidestep the actual context of the entire movement, around treaty rights, land rights, water rights, and tribal sovereignty because they couldn't win that fight,' he said. 'They had to go a circuitous route, and find a sympathetic court to attack the environmental movement.' Janet Alkire, the chair of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said in a March 3 statement that the Morton County case was 'frivolously alleging defamation and seeking money damages, designed to shut down all voices supporting Standing Rock.' She said the company also used propaganda to discredit the tribe during and after the protests. 'Part of the attack on our tribe is to attack our allies,' Alkire wrote. 'The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will not be silenced.'
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
In Canada, Indigenous advocates argue that mining companies violate the rights of nature
Taylar Dawn Stagner & Joseph Winters Grist In Western legal systems, arguments against pollution or the destruction of the environment tend to focus exclusively on people: It's wrong to contaminate a river, for example, because certain humans depend on the river for drinking water. But what if the river had an inherent right to be protected from pollution, regardless of its utility to humans? This is the idea that drives the 'rights of nature' movement, a global campaign to recognize the intrinsic value of nonhuman nature — not just rivers, but also trees, mountains, animals, ecosystems — by granting it legal rights. Many Indigenous worldviews already recognize these rights. The question for many in the movement, however, is how to bring the rights of nature into the courtroom. Enter the International Rights of Nature Tribunal, a recurring gathering of Indigenous and environmental advocates who present arguments regarding alleged violations of the rights of nature and Indigenous peoples. Given international law's broad failure to recognize the rights of nature, the events provide a model showing what this type of jurisprudence could look like. At the sixth tribunal in Toronto late last month, a panel of nine judges heard cases against Canadian mining companies, ultimately ruling that they had violated 'collective rights, Indigenous rights, and rights of nature.' 'Today's testimonies have emphasized the age-old stories of greed, colonization, … and the ongoing ecocide caused by the extractive industries,' said Casey Camp-Horinek, an elder of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma and one of the tribunal's judges. She and the other judges called for the ratification of a United Nations treaty on business and human rights, a report from U.N. experts on critical minerals and Indigenous peoples' rights, and further consideration of mining's impacts at the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Those recommendations and the verdict against the mining companies are set to be presented later this year at COP30 in Brazil — the United Nations' annual climate change conference — where the tribunal judges hope their findings will pressure countries to develop legal protections for nature and Indigenous peoples. Mining was selected as the theme of this tribunal because of the damage that resource extraction can cause to people and ecosystems, even though the sector is necessary for addressing climate change. Minerals like lithium and copper are needed in large quantities for electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and other renewable technologies to replace fossil fuels. A previous session of the tribunal, held in New York City last September, focused on oil and gas infrastructure. Canadian companies were singled out because of their prominence in the global mining sector. According to a recent report by the nonprofit MiningWatch Canada, the country is home to more than 1,300 mining and exploration companies, 730 of which operate overseas. About half the world's public mining companies are listed on Canadian stock exchanges. The tribunal was also meant to contrast with this week's annual conference of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, which featured climate change and Indigenous issues in a way that speakers described as opportunistic — by now a familiar criticism. James Yap, the tribunal's prosecutor and acting director of an international human rights program at the University of Toronto, called out one particular event titled 'Caliente Caliente Ooh Aah: Latin American Mining Is Heating Up!,' which invited attendees to 'dance to the Latin beat through the various regulatory issues affecting the region.' Neither the law firm that organized the Latin American mining event nor the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada responded to Grist's requests for comment. Jérémie Gilbert, a professor of social and ecological justice at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, applauded the tribunal for building an evidence base of the alleged human rights and nature's rights violations by transnational mining companies. His research has highlighted how most international law treats nature as a resource to be owned or exploited instead of having value in its own right. Legal protections that include Indigenous knowledge and the rights of nature have already been implemented in several countries — most famously in Ecuador, which in its rewritten 2008 constitution acknowledged the rights of Mother Earth, or Pacha Mama, to the 'maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions, and evolutionary processes.' 'What's required for the rights of nature is a pen and then enforceability,' said Dov Korff-Korn, the legal director of Sacred Defense Fund, an Indigenous environmental group based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Korff-Korn said that giving rights to nonhuman entities like water, animals, and plants is already baked into how many tribes see the world, so using tribal laws and respecting sovereignty is a way forward. 'We've got some unique rights and laws that have unique expressions,' said Frank Bibeau, an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and a tribal attorney with the nonprofit Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights who has worked on cases that give rights to nonhuman relatives under Chippewa treaties. One example came during the fight against the controversial Line 3 pipeline proposed by the oil and gas company Enbridge in Minnesota. Bibeau listed manoomin, Ojibwe for wild rice, as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources, arguing that the rice had rights to clean water and habitat that would be jeopardized by the pipeline and the oil spill risks it would bring. Bibeau said the lawsuit is an example of how many tribes see the rights inherent in nature. But since most settler courts don't, he argues that Indigenous treaties are a useful way to help protect nonhuman relatives. Other ways to develop legal protections could involve tribal courts. This year in Aotearoa, also known as New Zealand, the mountain Taranaki Maunga was recognized as a legal person because the Maori see it as an ancestor. The country also recognizes the rights of the Te Irewera Forest and the Whanganui River, so there is a developing global precedent for this sort of legal framework. Protections like these could protect ecosystems in the examined cases of the tribunal, including in Brazil where a firm called Belo Sun has proposed the development of the country's largest open-pit gold mine, and in regions affected by copper, silver, and other metals mining throughout Ecuador. One of the cases heard by tribunal judges related to a gold mine proposed in eastern Serbia by the Canadian company Dundee Precious Metals, and another centered on uranium mining within Canada. In a presentation about heavy metals mining in Penco, Chile, Valerie Sepúlveda — president of a Chilean environmental nonprofit called Parque para Penco — criticized the Toronto-based Aclara Resources for opaque operations and a failure to engage with residents near its mines. 'We must reevaluate what mining is really necessary and which is not,' she told the audience. One of the judges, in describing the 2015 release of millions of liters of cyanide solution from a gold mine in San Juan, Argentina, said mining companies are 'sacrificing these towns so that Americans can have their Teslas.' Another judge — Tzeporah Berman, international program director at the nonprofit — told attendees she was 'horrified and embarrassed' by the practices of Canadian mining companies. 'Canada must pursue human and environmental due diligence,' she added while delivering her verdict. 'I hope that our recommendations will be used in future policy design and legal challenges.'
