According to a European Commission study on human rights due diligence published today, voluntary measures have not succeeded in protecting workers, communities, and the environment from systematic human rights violations linked to the global supply chains of European businesses and financial institutions.
A year and a half ago, Friends of the Earth began a lawsuit against Shell in the Netherlands, led by Milieudefensie / Friends of the Earth Netherlands. We served Shell legal papers summoning them to court for climate crimes.
This week we received Shell's response. What we can already see from their arguments is that Shell believes it is already doing enough to combat the climate emergency.
Today Friends of the Earth Netherlands received Shell's long awaited re-sponse to the legal summons demanding it acts on climate change. While lawyers still need to study the 272 page legal document in detail, the response shows that Shell does not intend to meet the plaintiffs' demands.
Friends of the Earth Netherlands' Director Donald Pols says, "Shell once again takes no responsibility for the disproportionate role it plays in aggravating the climate crisis. Shell is undermining the world's chanc-es to stay below 1.5°C."
Civil society organisations demand fossil free politics
The world’s five big oil and gas majors and their lobbyists have spent at least 251 million euros lobbying the EU since 2010, new research reveals – as almost 200 civil society organisations demand fossil free politics.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has today failed to agree a new energy lending policy that proposed to end its financing of fossil fuel projects from 2020.
Voting on the policy was expected to take place in Luxembourg today at the meeting of the Bank’s board, made up of representatives from every EU member state, but the decision has for the second time been postponed, likely to November.
This week (14-18 October 2019) marks another round of negotiations on a historic UN treaty on transnational corporations and human rights will take place in Geneva. On the agenda is the first draft of the treaty that was published in July by Ecuador, the country chairing the process.
by Colin Roche, fossil free campaigner - originally published in Foresight
New research published today reveals the devastating consequences of the controversial Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system. A common ingredient in international trade and investment agreements, ISDS creates a parallel justice system that rolls out the red carpet for corporations to sue states when they act in the public interest.
In 2017 the Nigerian community of Ikebiri launched a court case against the Italian oil company ENI demanding clean-up of and compensation for an oil spill caused in 2010 by the failure of ENI’s pipeline. Friends of the Earth Europe and Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA) have been supporting the community in this unprecedented court case which was started in Italy in January 2018.
Friends of the Earth has today delivered a court summons to Shell at its headquarters in the Hague, to legally compel the company to cease its destruction of the climate, in a historic climate litigation on behalf of more than 30,000 people from 70 countries.