Taking Corporations to Court: Why Ivoirians are Suing a British Multinational
Countries: Côte d'Ivoire, United Kingdom
What happens when tens of thousands of impoverished Africans sue one of Britain's biggest oil companies for sickening them with toxic waste?
In 2006, the British company Trafigura unloaded a ship full of untreated chemical slop at a household garbage dump in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Scores of people living nearby were diagnosed with poisoning, hundreds lost their livelihoods as trash-scavengers, and 17 died. Now, 30,000 residents are suing the oil trading company for exposing them to toxic sludge. The company paid for a clean-up and admitted to "neglecting its duty of care," but has denied responsibility for the poisonings. The trial starts this fall.
Al Jazeera chronicles this David-versus-Goliath tale of Britain's biggest-ever lawsuit in the first installment of Corporations on Trial, which covers five lawsuits that pit ordinary people against the world's most powerful and wealthy corporations.
The other shows are just as compelling: Yesterday, the program aired the story of why Native American villagers in Alaska are suing Exxon Mobil. Next week, learn why 40,000 Indonesians who fled their homes after a volcanic eruption blame a gas company for their troubles.
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Looking at this from the
Looking at this from the company's point of view, as bleak as it may be, you would think they would learn from the past that it is becoming harder and harder for them to get away with horrible actions like this. Even if they 'win' the ensuing legal battle, they still take massive hits in the form of bad publicity, the legal costs they are forced to pay to defend themselves, and potentially even lost sales. If they are only thinking with their wallets, why don't they learn from instances like the Shell and the Ogoni people in Nigeria or the Exxon Valdez spill that have ended up costing the company a lot of money?
From the standpoint of the people affected, its truly a tragedy that some corporations believe they can continue to act with such impunity to the law. I hope that the trial comes to a speedy conclusion for the best of everyone involved.
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