Why environmental disaster victims are looking to European courts

Campaigners are finding courts increasingly open to considering cases – and finding in their favour

Between 2004 and 2007, the villages of Oruma, Goi and Ikot Ada Udo in Nigeria were polluted with oil from infrastructure built by Royal Dutch Shell. More than 15 years later, in late December, the company finally agreed to pay four farmers and their communities €15m in compensation and install a leak detection system after a court in the Netherlands ruled that Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary was liable and the parent company had a duty of care.

The legal battle has been so long that all the original claimants have died and Shell admits no liability under the settlement. But Milieudefensie, the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth that fought the case, says it shows “large-scale polluters all over the world that they can no longer get away with destructive practices”.