9 August 2024
President Joe Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Biden,
Re: South African human rights non-governmental organizations call for U.S. human rights lawyer Steven Donziger to be pardoned
We are a group of South African non-governmental organizations writing to you with a renewed sense of urgency regarding the situation of Steven Donziger, a U.S. human rights lawyer whose case has garnered international attention and outrage, including in South Africa. Mr. Donziger helped Amazon Indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador win a landmark pollution judgment against Chevron for having deliberately discharged billions of gallons of oil waste over a period of decades onto Indigenous ancestral lands as a cost-saving measure.
Mr. Donziger recently was subject to arbitrary detention in New York for 993 days on a Class B misdemeanor contempt charge prosecuted by a private law firm after the Department of Justice declined to pursue the case. As a result of the private prosecution, Mr. Donziger, spent close to three years in detention at home and in prison even though the maximum sentence under the law for his misdemeanor offense level was six months. The judicial process that led to Mr. Donziger’s detention has been condemned by highly respected jurists in the United States and around the world, including the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), whose five members were appalled by the bias in the judicial process against Mr. Donziger and found his detention to be illegal and “arbitrary” under international law.
Despite previous appeals and significant concern expressed by the WGAD over two years ago, there has been no response from the U.S. government. Furthermore, the situation for Mr. Donziger has only worsened. Chevron continues to escalate legal and public relations attacks against its opponents, exacerbating the pressing need for action. Chevron’s ongoing efforts to avoid accountability for the egregious environmental damage it has caused in Ecuador and elsewhere also highlight the urgent need for intervention to correct this injustice. In addition, the growing corporate attacks on free speech and the targeting of environmental and social justice activists who successfully challenge corporate power threaten the rights of more Americans daily.
Our renewed calls for a pardon for Mr. Donziger and compliance with the WGAD in Mr. Donziger’s case include a request that your administration launch a comprehensive investigation into Chevron’s illegal and abusive retaliation campaign to evade and compensate the people it harmed. As a result of Chevron’s abysmal failure to clean up its pollution, Amazon Indigenous and farmer communities continue to face imminent risk of death and the decimation of their unique cultures. As U.S. Representative Jim McGovern stated, “This is about more than a court case—it’s about sending a message that corporate polluters need to be held accountable for breaking the law and that they shouldn’t be allowed to harass and intimidate those who seek justice. The truth is that it’s the executives at Chevron, not Steve Donziger, who should have been put on trial for what they did.”
As the major non-governmental public interest litigation organisations from South Africa, we urge you to immediately pardon Mr. Donziger’s 2022 Class B federal misdemeanor conviction issued after a non-jury trial for contempt of court. Granting a pardon to Mr. Donziger would reinforce the U.S. commitment to international human rights standards and signal support to environmental and human rights advocates by rejecting the precedent of private corporate prosecutions. This action would also uphold democratic values and justice by rectifying the arbitrary mistreatment of Mr. Donziger, demonstrating that corporations cannot misuse the judicial system to criminalize legitimate human rights activism, particularly amid the global climate crisis.
The misdemeanor conviction of a well-known U.S. human rights lawyer after an unfair trial prosecuted by a corporate law firm is not only counter to international human rights law – it also sets a dangerous legal precedent for human rights defenders and attorneys nationwide. A pardon for Mr. Donziger will send a clear message that corporations in the U.S. cannot abuse and manipulate the legal system to ‘criminalize’ human rights defenders and environmental advocates who hold them accountable. The Biden administration must comply with the WGAD decision and its own human rights commitments by assiduously protecting the rights of human rights defenders like Mr. Donziger. Furthermore, the President should advance democratic accountability by adhering to the recommendation by the WGAD to launch an investigation into the reasons that triggered Mr. Donziger’s arbitrary detention. Ultimately, it is critical that Chevron remediate the massive toxic contamination it has admitted to discharging into Ecuador’s Amazon over a period of decades.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We look forward to your prompt action to address this injustice.
Sincerely,
Sheena Swemmer, Head of Gender Justice, Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), University of the Witwatersrand (sheena.swemmer@wits.ac.za)
