On behalf of...Nigerian plaintiffs in Bowoto v. Chevron Corp., ERI [Earth Rights International] filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court...asking the court to hear the case...[T]he petition requests that the Supreme Court overturn the decision in the case by the Court of Appeals...which ruled that corporations such as Chevron cannot be sued for torture and extrajudicial killing under the Torture Victim Protection Act...The litigation against Chevron arises out of an incident in 1998 in which Nigerian villagers occupied a Chevron offshore oil platform in the Niger Delta in order to protest environmental devastation and economic disruption caused by oil production. After several days of peaceful protest, Chevron called in...Nigerian military and police forces to attack the protestors. The security forces shot several protestors and killed two.