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In the early 1990s, lawyer Steven Donziger was invited by the Frente de Defensa de la Amazonía to help them win a case against Chevron whose oil drilling in the region had named it the ‘Amazon Chernobyl’. 

As a witness to the numerous atrocities being meted out to the inhabitants of Ecuador, including children walking barefoot on roads slicked with oil, Donziger filed a lawsuit against the oil corporation, representing over 30,000 farmers and Indigenous peoples. Despite winning the suit in 2011, Donziger was served with a countersuit by Chevron and placed under house detention. 

Srećko Horvat caught up with Donziger this week to discuss his views on the US justice system, his work with the Indigenous peoples, what he has learned from them, and how he coped during his detention.

Srećko: When a small delegation of the Progressive International visited you at your home in New York in late February 2022, you were still under house arrest. What does your story tell us about the justice system in the US? 

Steven: I believe my long detention in New York in retaliation for my human rights work is an example of how US justice falls short of its promise. At times, the system clearly acts in service of corporate power structures that exercise enormous influence and outright control over elements of the national government. 

In my case — after I helped Indigenous peoples in the Amazon win a large pollution judgment against Chevron in Ecuador, where Chevron had insisted the trial take place — the oil company approached a judge in New York and launched, probably, the most vicious retaliatory legal assault against a human rights lawyer in US history. Ultimately, they had the judge lock me up in my home and prison for almost three years on a completely unfounded contempt of court charge. After the regular prosecutor rejected the case, the judge appointed a private Chevron law firm to prosecute me in the name of the US government. This was the first corporate prosecution in US history, and I have never seen anything like it anywhere in the world. I became a corporate political prisoner in my own home; Chevron essentially held the keys to my freedom. They would have let me out if I had given up on collecting our $9.5 billion judgment. 

The judge who charged me with contempt also appointed a pro-corporate judge and longtime colleague to try me without a jury, even when procedural rules required all cases to be assigned randomly. But the judge who charged me wanted to control the process with his colleague so they could engineer the outcome they wanted and mount a show trial to try to intimidate all environmental advocates who do this important work. This judge promptly locked me up for over two years and forced me to wear an ankle bracelet 24/7 while my so-called trial was delayed because the courthouse was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We then had a farce of a trial in May of 2021 where the judge refused to let me mount a defence and she read the newspaper during witness testimony. All the witnesses against me were Chevron lawyers who claimed my refusal to turn over confidential client information to them, along with my computer and cell phone, somehow made me a criminal. So it was a somber reflection on the US system. It was so bad that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention condemned my treatment and demanded the US government release me and pay compensation. 

International trial monitors also have condemned the process. The judge, who seemed to take delight in ignoring the mounting criticism, sentenced me to six months in prison even though I had already spent over four times that amount locked up at home awaiting trial. It was outrageous and personally painful, but we built a movement of support out of it so that millions of people around the world, who had never heard of Chevron’s environmental atrocities in Ecuador, are now supporting the affected communities. 

Srećko: What does this tell us about US foreign policy? 

Steven: The US government spends huge sums on marketing its foreign policy as supportive of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Of course, it’s far more complicated. When people in other countries — in this case, Indigenous peoples in Ecuador’s Amazon — effectively confront the abuses committed by US corporations in their communities, virtually the entire machinery of the US government gets triggered to protect the company that caused the harm, rather than protect the people being victimized. In my case, Chevron’s lawyers worked hand in hand with the US embassy in Quito to coerce Ecuador’s president. They wanted him to interfere with the independent judiciary to kill the case brought by these courageous communities. 

Ultimately, elements of the US judiciary tried to help Chevron by engaging in, what I would call, corrupt practices to target and imprison me, the very lawyer who had collaborated with these communities for over 20 years. I’ve experienced an enormous gap between US foreign policy aspirations and reality, and my case has undermined its credibility. But of course, the US government has a lot of resources to hide the unpleasant side of what happened here from the rest of the world. How this lands in the minds of people is still being played out. Of course, we are doing our best to tell the story to as many people as possible.

Srećko: What can it tell us about the upcoming presidential race in 2024?

Steven: It tells me how little any so-called established candidates focus on the core issues hurting our country, threatening our freedoms and what’s left of our democracy. In my opinion, we have gone from a liberal democracy to a sort of plutocracy with elements of democracy and fascism competing for control. There is no way our electoral system is democratic; both Trump and the latest Bush became presidents without winning the majority of the vote. To get legislation passed in the national Congress, you need 60 out of 100 senators to vote in favor rather than 50. Corporate ‘donations’ infect almost every aspect of the legislative process and the rule-making system by government agencies. Even liberal Democrats take money from Chevron and the fossil fuel industry to fund their campaigns. The system is structured to protect the status quo at every level.

It’s frankly a scary time to be in the United States. Corporations are exerting their power like never before. It can be brutal here if you don’t have resources. We have no coherent healthcare system; over one million died from COVID-19. The life expectancy for Indigenous peoples in this country dropped by six years during the pandemic because of a lack of access to health care. Tens of millions of people cannot get health care because they have no funds. The level of cruelty is off the charts and, of course, made worse by Trump. A lot of it, in my opinion, is driven by racism toward people of color and immigrants, prompted by the fact that one man of color recently became president. 

I don’t think my Chevron-orchestrated imprisonment would have happened had this environment not been created and nourished for years by the corporate elites and politicians like Trump and his many followers. What is clear is that we are in an epic battle now for the country’s future. The Democratic party is fundamentally weak and heavily dependent on corporate money, just like the Republicans. We need a real candidate who will honestly talk about these real issues, free from corporate control, and build a new and sustainable political party representing the progressive left. But, of course, the resistance to that will be enormous should such a viable candidate emerge. But I believe it can happen with the right person, so I am hopeful. I’m an eternal optimist, but I am also realistic.

Srećko: You have worked with Indigenous movements and social activists throughout your career and most recently in Ecuador. What is the role of social movements in fighting climate crimes, and how could international cooperation and mobilization become stronger and successfully link climate crimes to capitalist expansion and extraction?

Steven: What’s different now is that the climate crisis presents an existential threat to humanity and all of life’s ecosystems. We need to keep our eyes first and foremost on this problem. The fossil fuel industry will never give up trying to make all the money it can before the inevitable transition to clean energy takes place; the question is whether their rapacious appetite for profit and control will destroy the future of our children and grandchildren before we can mobilize the power to really stop it. My corporate prosecution in the US is part of the playbook to crush dissent and maintain control by Chevron and the entire industry. Of course, the only effective mechanism is to organize and mobilize, which happens at the movement level. Social movements are critical to moving this process. And in my opinion, much of this effort must be led by Indigenous peoples who are the frontline defenders of the Earth and our precious ecosystems. I’ve learned so much from Indigenous elders who carry thousands of years of wisdom about the natural world in their heads and hearts. So we need to strengthen the Indigenous nations and communities and work in support of their leadership as much as possible if we hope to create a sustainable future. In the West, we also need to change our relationship with the natural world from brutal exploitation to something truly sustainable, but that’s a longer conversation.

Srećko: You have been a vocal voice in opposing the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, where he awaits 175 years for publishing and revealing war crimes of the United States (in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo). What do you think needs to happen so that his extradition is stopped and Assange is a free man?

Steven: What is happening to Julian Assange is an outrage on many levels. I urge people to read the excellent new book about the case by Nils Melzer, the human rights lawyer who served as the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture. He really explains the entire method through which Julian was demonized with false allegations of rape, to prepare the public for the brutal treatment that was to come.

The best way to stop his extradition is mobilization, organizing, and pressure. I fear his mistreatment is a method to either kill him through torture and neglect, as Melzer points out in his book, or induce him to harm himself or commit suicide while being held under awful conditions at the Belmarsh prison. This is another example of someone who the US government is retaliating against for speaking out about abuses or, in this case, war crimes. It’s amazing how quickly the normal legal processes fall apart when entrenched pools of power are deeply threatened.

Srećko: After spending 45 days in prison and a combined total of 993 days under house arrest, being surveilled, micro-managed, and harassed throughout this process, what ways and methods helped you to stay sane and manage to find the strength to continue to fight? 

Steven: I was determined not to let them hurt me. So I did a lot of physical exercise on the floor of my apartment, spent lots of time with my wife and son, and talked to my clients in Ecuador. My son spent ages 12 to 15 with his dad in detention. At first, he was sort of embarrassed to bring his friends around, but then I noticed he slowly became proud of me when he began to understand better why it was happening. We watched some good shows on TV and sporting events. I caught up on some things I had neglected because I was always so busy traveling and working. 

And I did work my ass off from my couch to fight the legal case against Chevron and to build solidarity around the world which resulted in more than 100,000 people joining our campaign. That support, including 68 Nobel Laureates, really uplifted me psychologically. Of course, it hurt to be detained, not to be a complete father to my son. I lived in fear every night that they would come and snatch me and put me in prison for some manufactured reason. I lived with that every day for almost three years. But our campaign is much stronger due to the world’s reaction to my detention. As a result, I am so much stronger personally, and so is my family. My son has become a fine young man. We are good and blessed with opportunity. And I very much look forward to continuing this important work.

You can read more by Steven Donziger here. 

The Internationalist Archive