TORONTO, Oct. 10 /CSRwire/ – Peter Grant, the renowned Canadian aboriginal rights lawyer who recently helped to win a major case before the country’s Supreme Court, is joining the legal team of indigenous groups in Ecuador who are moving to enforce a $12 billion environmental judgment against Chevron in Canadian courts.
“I am honored to represent indigenous persons who have been harmed by the highly irresponsible oil activities of Chevron in the Amazon rainforest of the Ecuador,” said Grant, who just returned from a tour of the affected area of the South American nation with Canadian indigenous leaders Phil Fontaine and Ed John and Greenpeace Co-Founder Rex Weyler.
(See here for a CBC story on the Ecuador visit by Grant and here for comments from Fontaine and Ed John backing collection of the Ecuador judgment.)
“We are going to urge all courts in Canada to reject Chevron’s obstructionist tactics and move this case to a final resolution as soon as possible,” said Grant, who works out of Vancouver. “Twenty-four years of litigation is simply too long for any case, particularly one involving vulnerable First Nations groups who are suffering from cancers and other dramatic health impacts from oil contamination.”
Grant will make his first appearance on the matter today in the Ontario Court of Appeal where argument is scheduled for an 11th hour effort by Chevron’s lawyers to impose a $1 million costs order on the impoverished indigenous groups. The underlying environmental claims originally were filed in 1993, but Chevron has used at least 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers to retaliate against the indigenous groups and to obstruct justice and delay the process both in Ecuador and other countries, said Aaron Marr Page, the longtime U.S. lawyer for the affected communities.