NIGERIA has suffered hundreds of oil leaks and spills from Shell’s infrastructure in the country. Devastated by the contamination of their land and water sources, the Bille and Ogale communities have successfully put the oil giant in the dock at the London High Court after a decade-long struggle.

Unable to farm or fish without access to clean water, the communities, which have a combined population of about 50,000 people in the Niger Delta, accuse Shell of breaching their right to a clean and healthy environment guaranteed in the Nigerian constitution and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.

“More than 10 years after these two Nigerian communities first brought their claims against Shell in the UK, our clients simply want Shell to clean up their pollution and compensate them for their loss of livelihood,” said Matthew Renshaw from Leigh Day, the legal firm representing them.

“But instead of trying to resolve this issue, Shell has repeatedly attempted to block and delay the legal process,” he complained.

Denying any legal responsibility over the destruction of livelihoods and health by its Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC), Shell argued that British courts had no jurisdiction to try their claims.

Nevertheless, ruling in February 2021 that a case can arguably be made to hold the British-based Shell responsible for the actions of its Nigerian subsidiary, the British Supreme Court allowed the Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue the company in English courts.

Finally, the “preliminary issues trial” began in London’s High Court on February 13, and is expected to be heard till March 7, following which the court will determine the scope of legal issues to be decided at the full trial set to begin in late 2026.

English court will weigh human rights and corporate liability

The court is considering two critical questions: first, whether pollution by a private company is a violation of the fundamental human rights set out in the Nigerian constitution and African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, and second whether Shell can be held responsible for the leaks caused by oil thefts from its pipeline, to which the company attributes most of the spillage.

“Oil theft does lead to some of the oil spill pollution that scars the Niger Delta. But establishing the extent to which oil theft, sabotage and aged and corroded pipes respectively are the cause of pollution requires something the delta has never had: real transparency over the condition of oil infrastructure and the oil spill investigation process,” according to a 2013 report by Amnesty International.

There have been cases where the company changed the cause of the spill from “operational failure” to “sabotage” — doing so “unilaterally, with no evidence and after the official investigation was complete,” added the report.

A landmark case for environmental protection

If the Bille and Ogale communities win this case, “it would be the first time in legal history that a UK multinational has been found to have breached a community’s human rights due to environmental pollution,” said a press statement by Leigh Day.

“It has been a long, hard fight to get here but we are happy to see Shell finally facing trial at the High Court in London and hope to see justice prevail. Once we relied on fishing for our livelihoods — now, because of the pollution, our rivers and waterways are devastated, and the fish are gone,” said Bille community leader Bennett Okpoki.

“As we speak, people are dying in Ogale, my community,” its leader Bebe Okpabi said, speaking at a demonstration outside the court ahead of the hearing.

At least 1.5 million tonnes of crude oil has been split in the Niger Delta since 1958, according to a 250-plus pages report by the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP) published in 2011. The “community members at Nisisioken Ogale are drinking water from wells… contaminated with benzene, a known carcinogen, at levels over 900 times above the World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline,” the report revealed.

“Local communities are aware of the pollution and its dangers but state that they continue to use the water for drinking, bathing, washing and cooking as they have no alternative,” it added.

Following the public health alarm raised by this report, the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project was launched by the Nigerian government in 2012. It was partly funded by the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company and Shell, which reportedly coughed up $350 million. Clean-up operations began only in 2016.

Contracts to undertake the cleaning were given to companies with no experience. Many sites labelled as clean were still contaminated. The laboratory results were falsified, according to an investigation by the BBC, which quoted a whistleblower as saying: “It’s common knowledge that really what we’re doing is a scam. It’s a con perpetuated so that more money can be put into the pot and end up in the pockets of politicians and other people in power.”

“It is sad that Shell will now want to take us through this very expensive, very troublesome trial, claiming one technicality or the other,” added Bebe Okpabi.

This article appeared at peoplesdispatch.org.