It is an international, sprawling and unique case that finds itself before the French courts. A billion dollar public health case. This is the amount of compensation claimed by 1,234 former Nicaraguan farm workers from three American agrochemical multinationals. Until 1983, The Dow Chemical Company, Occidental Chemical (now Oxy) and Shell Oil exported DBCP (Dibromo-chloropropane) to Central America, which was banned in the United States in 1977. This extremely polluting pesticide, which causes cancer and infertility in particular, was used without protection by the plaintiffs to eliminate worms harmful to the roots of banana trees. Monday, January 24, the magistrates of the Paris court will examine the request for summons from the three American groups within the framework of the procedure ofexequatur launched by the victims’ lawyers.
This aims to make enforceable in France, and in the other States of the European Union, a Nicaraguan court decision which condemned the American companies to pay 805 million dollars in compensation to these former workers. This judgment, pronounced in 2006, recognizes the responsibility of American groups in the import, distribution and use of DBCP on farms between 1977 and 1983. This was upheld on appeal and, in 2012, by the Supreme Court of Nicaragua. However, this judicial decision could never be executed. Dow Chemical Company, Occidental Chemical and Shell Oil are strongly contesting it and have withdrawn from the country without leaving any seizable assets behind.
Suspicions on the file
Attracted by this case as by a treasure, American lawyers – for some villainous – rushed to Chinandega in Nicaragua to identify more and more alleged victims of the DBCP. And this, in order to bring the case before the American justice. It has been shown that certain health data have been doctored by these lawyers, that alleged victims of infertility have had children. At the same time, the American giants implicated have never ceased to use their financial and legal power and influence through lobbying and investigation firms to discredit the justice of Nicaragua, the plaintiffs and their advice.
In 2010, Californian judge Victoria Chaney overturned a ruling in favor of six Nicaraguan farmworkers. This magistrate reputed to be close to the Republican Party then points to a “conspiracy” and concludes to a fraud made possible by “Nicaragua’s peculiar and bizarre social ecosystem”. This judgment dashed the hopes of justice and compensation for Nicaraguan victims. At least in the United States where the three multinationals have their headquarters: in New York for Oxy, in the State of Delaware – considered a small ” Fiscal paradise “ – for Shell Oil and Dow Chemical Company.
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