Recently, the UK High Court threw out a case brought against oil giant Shell by two impoverished communities in the Niger Delta. It is a blow to the communities in their struggle for justice after suffering years of devastating oil spills.
But the judgement also has wider implications for corporate accountability, making it more difficult to bring future legal cases against UK companies that abuse human rights abroad. As such, the ruling goes to the heart of a situation in which multinational corporations enjoy an impunity that is sharply at odds with their enormous profits and power. It further demonstrates the need for legal reforms that actually improve access of victims of corporate abuse to courts in jurisdictions where large corporations are based (the ‘home’ state).
The reality is that people continue to suffer abuses at the hands of companies operating across borders but rarely receive any meaningful remedy. The reality is that people continue to suffer abuses at the hands of companies operating across borders—particularly in the developing world—but rarely receive any meaningful remedy. Picture the Nigerian woman who wakes up one morning to find that the riverbank where she used to collect shellfish has been covered in sticky black oil. Oil that is never properly cleaned up, and continues to leech into the water and soil for years, sometimes decades, destroying her livelihood and source of food, and putting her health at risk.
