Nine U.S. Law Professors Say Federal Judge Acted Improperly In Trying to Block Environmental Judgme

[Judi Lynn]

Amazon Defense Coalition: Nine U.S. Law Professors Say Federal Judge Acted Improperly In Trying to Block Environmental Judgment Against Chevron

Injunction Shows "Judicial Arrogance" and Violates the Constitution, Says Bert Neuborne of New York University

NEW YORK, June 29, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Nine prominent U.S. law professors, including a former member of Congress, have joined a group of international law scholars from South Africa and Australia in asking a U.S. appeals court to overturn the decision of a federal judge who claims he has worldwide authority to block a group of Ecuadorian citizens from enforcing their environmental judgment against Chevron for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the lands and waterways of the Amazon.

The U.S. professors have asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York to dissolve an unprecedented injunction issued in March by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan purporting to block the Ecuadorians from enforcing the $18 billion judgment anywhere in the world. In anticipation of an adverse judgment in Ecuador, Chevron had sold its assets in the country and forced the plaintiffs to seek to collect any final judgment in other nations where the oil giant operates.

In an effort to stop enforcement of an the Ecuadorian judgment, Chevron filed a completely separate lawsuit before Kaplan in Februnary of this year asking that he declare Ecuador's entire judicial system broken. Without an evidentiary hearing and with the government of Ecuador not represented in the case, Kaplan quickly issued an injunction asserting that he had the power to order the private Ecuadorian citizens to forego initiating enforcement proceedings throughout the entire world -- even in courts outside the United States where the U.S. judge obviously does not have jurisdiction.

Kaplan's unusual decision sparked an international controversy that has been growing for weeks and has attracted the attention of scholars in South Africa, Australia, Italy, Spain, and Finland in addition to the law professors in the United States. All say Kaplan's order disregards international law and the U.S. Constitution and would wreak havoc with the normal rules of transnational litigation.

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