News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Group
Vince Cable Described As ‘Minister For Shell’ In Letter From Oil Giant
By John Donovan
Vince Cable, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills was formerly a senior Royal Dutch Shell executive.
It has recently come to light that Shell successfully lobbied his department to intervene on Shell’s behalf in a case being heard by the US Supreme Court: Kiobel-v-Shell.
The UK Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has just released its decision in regard to a complaint:
Extract
Graphics from The Guardian article Unloveable Shell, the Goddess of Oil by Andrew Rowell, published 15th Nov 1997
“Are there any principles that the UK government is willing to stand up for in the face of business lobbying? Apparently not, if documents released through a Freedom of Information request are anything to go by. These show, in detail, how the UK intervened to support Shell and Rio Tinto in high-profile US human rights court cases, following requests from the companies. The Kiobel case was brought against the oil giant by communities from the Niger Delta, who accused Shell of helping the Nigerian military to systematically torture and kill environmentalists in the 1990s.”
There are also secret documents to prove how Shell tried to bribe my husband in an executive meeting at the government house in Port Harcourt, when they planned to arrest and kill Ken Saro-Wiwa. And when they did not succeed, they turned around to mastermind the killing of the Ogoni 4, in a bid to set confusion amongst the Ogoni people – a problem that has remained to date.Dear John,
Thank you for all that you are doing and contributing to the cause of the oppressed.
God bless you mightily and please keep up the good work.
The God of the widows and orphans will guide and lead/strengthening you to continue standing/fighting for the Oppressed.
Your readers may be interested in these extracts from an article about my court case against Royal Dutch Shell arising from Shell’s activities in Nigeria.
We are holding Shell responsible for the crimes committed against us and the rest of humanity. I was stripped naked, tortured, and locked up twice, while my husband and the rest of the Ogoni 9 were maimed, strangled, killed and acidized. I have proofs of those who were paid by Shell, and who were in their payroll to lie, testify, some of them sworn affidavit in court. do have documents that implicate Shell. The documents were sent through my late husband’s office as Honorable Commissioner for Commerce and Tourism during the Komo administration as military governor of Rivers State. I do have pictures of Shell’s cronies airlifting my husband in their helicopter, dressed in uniform and helmet that bore Shell’s logo. There are also secret documents to prove how Shell tried to bribe my husband in an executive meeting at the government house in Port Harcourt, when they planned to arrest and kill Ken Saro-Wiwa. And when they did not succeed, they turned around to mastermind the killing of the Ogoni 4, in a bid to set confusion amongst the Ogoni people – a problem that has remained to date.
By Sara Murphy December 14, 2012
Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A ) is the respondent in a landmark case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. The outcome of Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum will have significant implications for the oil and gas sector, and potentially for other extractive companies operating in sensitive regions.
This, among other factors, could signal a new era of costly corporate liability for human rights and environmental violations around the world. The days of corporate impunity are drawing to a close, and companies that hope for sustained access to critical resources must deal better with the communities where they operate. Investors would do well to pay attention.
By Desmond Tutu
3:36PM EST September 30. 2012 – In South Africa, we have struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings because of the color of their skin. Apartheid was a culture of legalized oppression that denied all of my people our fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. By the grace of God, the world supported our struggle for freedom, dignity and justice.
After apartheid, South Africans built a new country where the law was a tool for protecting human rights, not a means of oppression. But on Monday, the opening day of the new term, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider a case that could severely weaken a key legal mechanism used to secure justice for survivors of abuses such as those that fueled apartheid.
By Ryan Mitchell
Could five unelected individuals be all it takes to undo a major, 2-century-old U.S. commitment to advance the rule of law? If they wear the right robes, the answer is yes.
The Supreme Court opened its new term on Monday morning with a second round of oral arguments in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell). The court’s nine justices will decide by majority whether to reduce the scope of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a 1789 law passed by the First Congress, which makes punishable violations of the “law of nations,” and grants non-U.S. citizens the right to bring related civil lawsuits.
“Under the terms of the Rome Statute it is clear why so many large corporations and foreign governments are working so hard to limit the reach of the US Alien Tort Statute. Too many corporations and corporate managers could face criminal charges if Shell does not prevail in their arguments before the US Supreme Court to limit the reach of this Statute.”The enclosed Wiki link will give your readers a broader view of the concept we now refer to as ‘crimes against humanity’. This term is now well defined within the body of international law. Furthermore, it was not only employed during the IMT trials at Nuremberg after the defeat of Nazi Germany, it was employed in the Tokyo war crimes trials as well. This legal concept has been use to bring Yugoslavia war criminals to trial, as well as those who perpetrated the atrocities in Rwanda.
10/03/2012
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court considered a case that strikes at the core of corporate social responsibility, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell). The Kiobel plaintiffs allege that Shell was complicit in egregious human rights violations including rape, torture, and the extrajudicial killings of peaceful protesters who objected to Shell’s presence in Ogoniland, Nigeria. Shell, a Dutch corporation, argued that the law used to bring the company before a U.S. court, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), should not apply. The multinational corporation argued that there is too tenuous a connection between what allegedly happened in Nigeria and the United States. Shell is essentially fighting to limit a law that remedies human rights abuses wherever they occur.
Posted: 10/03/2012 11:45 am
This fall the U.S. Supreme Court will decide a case that throws a spotlight on the oil industry’s toxic influence on our democracy — and why we need to move America beyond oil as quickly as possible.
In the 1990s, Shell Oil allegedly enlisted the Nigerian military dictatorship to suppress opposition to Shell’s oil operations. A 2002 lawsuit, Kiobel v. Shell, alleges that Shell “aided and abetted” the Nigerian military dictatorship in committing severe human rights abuses against members of the Ogoni people who were involved in a nonviolent movement to stop it from drilling for oil in their rich Niger River Delta homeland. But, in a challenge to a 200-year-old law, Shell is arguing that as a corporation it cannot be held responsible for human rights violations abroad.
By John Donovan
We broke the news yesterday morning of an elaborate hoax in which fake emails purportedly from Shell, were apparently sent to 71,000 Shell employees in relation to the Kiobel v Shell case currently before the US Supreme Court.
Extracts from related news reports about the hoax:
BloombergBusinessWeek article: Activists send fake email to Shell workers
HOUSTON (AP) — Two activist groups said Tuesday they sent an email to more than 71,000 Shell Oil employees that pretended to be from a fake company division and provided information about a U.S. Supreme Court case involving the company.
HOUSTON (AP) — Two activist groups said Tuesday they sent an email to more than 71,000 Shell Oil employees that pretended to be from a fake company division and provided information about a U.S. Supreme Court case involving the company.
The groups, People Against Legalizing Murder and the Yes Lab, said that on Monday they sent the email that purported to be from Shell’s “Grassroots Employee Empowerment Division,” which doesn’t exist.
Business interests argue they are being subjected to claims over the bad behavior of foreign regimes, which are shielded from lawsuits here under U.S. law.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 (UPI) — A rights group supporting Nigerian nationals before the U.S. Supreme Court said the case seemed to be moving against Royal Dutch Shell.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum. Esther Kiobel filed the case in U.S. courts under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 law, saying her husband Barinem Kiobel was executed by the Nigerian military with the alleged backing of Shell.
Advocacy group EarthRights International said Monday’s arguments were viewed as favorable for Kiobel.
I would like to remind your readers that the United States held its own version of the Nuremberg trials in the American Zone of what was once West Germany. The trials held at Nuremberg ended in 1946 but the US decided to continue prosecuting those whom were deemed by the US government to be (suspected) ‘war criminals’. The trials in the US Zone ended in 1949. (see the attached link w/ PDF file). None of the other major powers conducted their own versions of the Nuremberg trials.
These articles have a very interesting discussion of the history of the Nuremberg trials and the establishment of recognized international legal standards for ‘crimes against humanity’, etc.
By Mark Sherman
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court plunged into its new term Monday with a high-stakes dispute between businesses and human rights groups over accountability for foreign atrocities.
The next nine months hold the prospect for major rulings on affirmative action, gay marriage and voting rights.
The term that concluded in June set a high bar for drama and significance, and the new one holds considerable potential as well. Cases involving some of the most emotional issues in American life are likely to be decided after voters choose a president and new Congress next month.
By John Donovan
Shell’s Arctic activities were the subject of an elaborate widely reported hoax.
Another similarly elaborate hoax is now targeting the Kiobel v Royal Dutch Shell case currently being heard at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Like the earlier hoax, it involves a fake Shell website and other deceptions with full use being made of social media such as Facebook.
The emails we received yesterday, purportedly from Shell, are printed below with working links.
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
Hard as it may be to believe, the new U.S. Supreme Court term is already upon us. In the balance first is the future of human rights litigation in U.S. courts — and whether torture committed by foreigners abroad is any of our business.
Although the last term ended with the unexpected emergence of Chief Justice John Roberts as the court’s wild card, this one begins with fevered speculation about what is on the mind of Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy.
The case being heard Oct. 1, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, has been full of surprises from the start. It concerns whether Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) aided the Nigerian government in rapes and murders of people living in the oil-rich Ogoni region. It came to the Supreme Court with the narrow question of whether corporations could be held liable under a 1789 statute that says the federal courts have jurisdiction over suits brought by a foreigner for torts “in violation of the law of nations.”
The US Supreme Court is back in session tomorrow to tackle major social issues such as same-sex marriage and affirmative action, as well as a high-profile international human rights case involving the Dutch oil giant Shell in Nigeria..
Twelve Nigerians accuse Shell of becoming an accomplice to torture, extrajudicial executions and crimes against humanity in the Niger Delta region.
The nine justices will decide whether to hold major companies liable for crimes committed outside US borders by virtue of the Alien Tort Statute, a law passed two centuries ago.
Published: September 25, 2012 8:13 PM
By EMILY BAZELON, Slate
Next Monday, the Supreme Court will begin what promises to be an action-packed fall. I’m looking forward to three cases in the first half of October.
Here they are, in the order they’ll be argued:
Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, Monday, Oct. 1: The term opens with a case held over from last year — in a way that doesn’t bode well for Esther Kiobel. She sued Royal Dutch Shell in 2002 on behalf of her late husband and 11 other Nigerians, saying that the company colluded with the Nigerian military in the 1990s to silence protesters — going so far as torturing and killing them — who were trying to halt oil exploration. Last term, when the court first heard the case, the question was whether corporations could be sued for human rights abuses. Cue lots of bitterness on the left about how the court could treat companies as people for the purposes of campaign donations, but not when it comes to accusations of murder.
Posted: 09/19/2012 11:50 am
In case you hadn’t heard, today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Don’t worry if you’re feeling out of the loop; I didn’t know this day existed until recently. From what I have learned, the day is all in good fun, celebrating pirate culture and Johnny Depp movies, which is why we don’t associate things like slavery and genocide with this kind of lighthearted stuff. But oil giant Royal Dutch Shell puts a different spin on it. They’re actually talking like a pirate, and to the U.S. Supreme Court no less.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 (UPI) — A U.S. Supreme Court brief filed by Shell in a case involving alleged rights violations in Nigeria contains “offensive” arguments, an advocacy group said.
Shell, in Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum, is accused of working with the Nigerian government to ensure resistance to operations in the oil-rich Niger Delta was protected by military force.
In a 71-page brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, the company argues the Alien Tort Statute doesn’t apply in a case in Nigeria because that law doesn’t extend to activity conducted on foreign soil.
John,
I found this article and thought your readers might find it interesting. Politics does indeed make for strange bedfellows. Marvin Odum’s 12 plus visits to the White House have obviously ‘paid off’, although one wonders who got paid off, no pun intended. It is amazing how far politicians will go to get elected.
If you doubt the significance of the political influence that Royal Dutch Shell has then this should cast away any and all doubts. Recall that the British and Dutch governments went to bat on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell.
Lawfare › Kiobel: Obama Administration Supports Shell, Argues ATS …
MOSOP President/Spokesman, Dr. Goodluck Diigbo has described British Prime David Cameron’s government amicus brief in the Ogoni case of Kiobel v Shell in the United States of America as an ill-advised and short-sighted colonial tactics.
Diigbo said the prime minister’s action has deeper implications for destabilizing Nigeria. “What it means is that victims of oil operations that have no way of seeking equity and justice should take the law into their hands instead to use the legitimate judicial process available in the United States for requisite redress against violations by multinational oil companies in which Cameron’s government has vested interest,” Diigbo explained.
By a Guest ContributorI have been following this sorry saga of the British and Dutch governments filing a brief with the US courts claiming that a ‘corporation’ could not be held liable for human rights violations and was therefore not subject to human rights laws.
Excuse me, but I think it may be time to revisit the legal proceedings that we commonly refer to as the ‘Nuremberg Trials’ that were held shortly after the Second World War. As I recall a number of German industrialists were in fact placed on the list of wanted ‘war criminals’ for their complicity with the Nazi government in the commission of what we (the civilized Western World) considered to be ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. As I recall German industrialists were also prosecuted for those acts. However, it has been many years since I have gone through those proceedings (I studied them in my college history classes), so my memory is a bit fuzzy.
That does Royal Dutch Shell have in common with General Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb army? More than you’d think…
First off, they’ve both appeared in the Hague in the past week. Shell was there Tuesday for its Annual General Meeting with shareholders, and Mladic just days earlier for the opening of his trial before the International Criminal Court.
More importantly, Shell and Mladic are both facing court proceedings for allegations of “aiding and abetting” egregious human rights abuses. Shell is accused of complicity in torture and killings of Nigerian environmentalists in the Kiobel vs. Shell case, which the U.S. Supreme Court will re-hear in the fall, and Mladic is accused of 11 counts of crimes against humanity, including the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.
The UK government is facing pressure from human rights activists about why it has chosen to intervene in a US court case connected to oil major Royal Dutch Shell.
The UK government and the Dutch government have jointly filed a so-called “amicus brief” to the US Supreme Court on the side of Shell…
FULL ARTICLE (SUBSCRIPTION MAY BE REQUIRED)
March 1, 2012
If foreign victims of human rights abuses can use U.S. courts to seek justice from their tormentors, it shouldn’t matter whether they were mistreated by an individual or a corporation. But the Supreme Court was urged this week by an international oil company to insulate it from a law against torture and other violations of the “law of nations.”
In 1789, Congress enacted the Alien Tort Statute, which gave federal district courts jurisdiction over “any civil action by an alien for a tort committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Apparently Congress had in mind a small number of torts or civil wrongs including piracy and attacks on ambassadors. The law gathered dust for almost 200 years until it was rediscovered by lawyers for victims of human rights abuses.
Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:12pm EST
* At issue is reach of 1789 US law used to sue corps
* Lawsuit accuses Shell of aiding Nigerian rights abuses
* Ruling expected by the end of June
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) – The Supreme Court will weigh next week whether corporations can be sued in the United States for suspected complicity in human rights abuses abroad, in a case being closely watched by businesses concerned about long and costly litigation.
The high court on Tuesday will consider the reach of a 1789 U.S. law that had been largely dormant until 1980, when human rights lawyers started using it, at first to sue foreign government officials. Then, over the next 20 years, the lawyers used the law to target multinational corporations.
Daniel Fisher, Forbes Staff
12/20/2011
For nearly 200 years, the Alien Tort Claims Act lay dormant, a one-sentence law passed by the first Congress that gave federal courts jurisdiction to hear any lawsuit brought by an alien for torts committed in violation of the law of nations. Then around 1980 inventive lawyers rediscovered it as a tool for international human-rights enforcement. One judge dubbed the long-neglected law a legal Lohengrin, after the knight in the Richard Wagner opera who magically appears in a boat drawn by a swan.
First Posted: 12/15/11 12:53 PM ET Updated: 12/15/11 01:25 PM ET
WASHINGTON — A multinational oil company will be coming to the Supreme Court this winter to argue that corporations are not “natural persons” and therefore cannot be held liable for committing international human rights violations such as torture, extrajudicial killings and crimes against humanity.
The case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, began far from Washington in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta. About a dozen Nigerians contend that Shell Oil’s parent company aided and abetted the Nigerian government in its violent suppression of environmental and human rights protesters resisting Shell’s operations there in the 1990s. In September 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit accepted the oil company’s argument that as a corporation it’s immune from being sued in the United States for the overseas conduct. Since then, three other appeals courts, looking at the same law, have held otherwise — in cases brought against Exxon, Firestone and Rio Tinto for similar alleged atrocities.
“Second Circuit Leaves Intact Ruling Limiting Jurisdiction of Alien Tort Statute Over Corporations”
Fulbright Briefing
Judith A. Archer and Sarah E. O’Connell
February 16, 2011
On February 4, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied en banc reconsideration of a September ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., holding that the jurisdiction granted by the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) does not extend to civil actions brought against corporations. The vote of the full 10-judge panel of the Second Circuit was split 5-5, leaving intact the original ruling from September. The initial panel voted separately not to rehear the case. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., No. 06-4800-cv, 06-4876-cv, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 2200 (2d Cir. Feb. 4, 2011)
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website etc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 60 books also containing references to our websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website owner
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA – HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
MORE DETAILS:
MORE DETAILS: After a solicitor acting for Shell threatened to make the litigation "drawn out and difficult" with the intention of draining the resources of a financially weaker opponent, my late father (Alfred Donovan) and I decided to mount a wide-ranging campaign as a counter-measure. We jointly founded the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group, which nearly 15% of Shell UK retailers joined. We regularly conducted ethical surveys involving up to 1500 Shell petrol stations. All responses were opened and authenticated by an independent solicitor who supplied Affidavits confirming the results. In whole page announcements in trade magazines (examples above) we challenged Shell to commission and publish the resuits of independent research asking the same questions and offering respondents GUARANTEED anonymity. Shell never took up the invitation. Instead it asked the UK Advertising Standards Authority to investigate our Shell surveys. No problems were found. The head-cut image of Alfred Donovan appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. 
