A Dutch appeals court in The Hague is to rule today (Friday) whether the country’s tribunals can hear a landmark case for damages brought by four Nigerians against oil giant Shell.
The four farmers and fishermen, backed by the Dutch branch of environmental group Friends of the Earth, first filed the case in 2008 against the Anglo-Dutch company in a court case thousands of kilometres from their homes.
They want Shell to clean up devastating oil spills in four heavily-polluted villages in the Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta, prevent further spills and pay compensation.
But in January 2013 a lower Dutch court threw out most of the lawsuit, saying the plaintiffs could not hold Shell’s parent company responsible for the pollution which has for years blighted the southeastern delta system in Africa’s largest oil producer.
In that ruling, judges said Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary was partly responsible and ordered it to compensate farmers and fishermen in one claim, in the Delta village of Ikot Ada Udo, but not in the three other claims.
Both the farmers and Shell appealed the ruling
