International court orders ecuador to pay chevron $220 million despite company’s massive amazon pollution

In a controversial ruling that has outraged Indigenous communities, an international arbitration court has ordered Ecuador to pay over $220 million to U.S. oil giant Chevron for alleged “denial of justice.” The decision comes despite Ecuadorian courts previously finding Chevron guilty of causing catastrophic environmental damage in the Amazon rainforest.

The Union for People Affected by Texaco’s Oil Operations (UDAPT), representing six Indigenous nations and 80 communities, strongly condemned the ruling. “It is neither appropriate nor fair,” the organization stated. “Chevron came to Ecuador, took more than $30 billion from the oil it extracted, polluted the Amazon, caused the extinction of peoples and the deaths of hundreds of people from cancer.” The group expressed outrage that ordinary Ecuadorians must now compensate a company responsible for what many consider one of the region’s worst environmental disasters.

The legal battle stems from a 1993 lawsuit filed by residents of the Lago Agrio oil basin against Texaco, which Chevron later acquired. From 1964 to 1992, the company operated in northeastern Ecuador using what courts determined was a deliberately substandard waste disposal system. This system dumped over 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into at least 880 unlined pits throughout the Amazon, contaminating groundwater, soil, and rivers that local communities depended on for drinking water, fishing, and bathing. The pollution caused widespread health problems, including elevated cancer rates, and devastated Indigenous ways of life that had existed for generations.