"Court of Appeal hears Shell Nigeria oil spill appeal which will have major implications for future environmental claims", 8 October 2024

The appeal, being heard from 8-11 October 2024, centres on what people taking legal action are expected to prove at the very start of an environmental claim. Lawyers for the two Nigerian communities believe that, unless overturned, a High Court ruling in the case will make it almost impossible for people to bring environmental claims over repeated incidents of pollution in the future.

The High Court ruled in March 2024 that, because the claimants have been unable to link each spill to each incident of damage, the claims should be treated as a “Global Claim” - a type of legal action previously only used in contractual disputes in the construction industry. 

This means that...the communities must prove that Shell was responsible for all the pollution that has impacted their environment. If there were any other sources of pollution for which Shell was not responsible, the entire claim would fail. Therefore, Shell could be responsible for 95% of the oil pollution, but if 5% came from another source it would mean the claims would fail altogether...

The communities argue that the High Court expects them to do the impossible, since they are simply unable to link each polluting event to precise incidents of damage without expert evidence and disclosure of documents by Shell. All each of the claimants know is that their waterways and drinking water became polluted over time, they cannot identify precisely which spill caused precisely what damage at such an early stage in the claim...