Article
Jungle Law [Chevron Lawsuit in Ecuador]
In a forsaken little town in the Ecuadorean Amazon [Lago Agrio]…the giant Chevron Corporation has been maneuvered into a makeshift courtroom and is being sued to answer for conditions in 1,700 square miles of rain forest said by environmentalists to be one of the world's most contaminated industrial sites...Chevron is represented by high-priced firms of experienced lawyers in Quito and Washington, D.C.... Its antagonists are 30,000 Amazonian settlers and indigenous people, who call themselves Los Afectados—the Affected Ones. These plaintiffs are represented by a low-budget but serious team of North American and Ecuadorean attorneys, who are backed by a Philadelphia law firm that is known for class-action securities litigation…[also refers to Petroecuador, Gulf Oil, Woodward-Clyde]