Big Oil Pleads Immunity From Prosecution for Human Rights Crimes

This fall the U.S. Supreme Court will decide a case that throws a spotlight on the oil industry's toxic influence on our democracy -- and why we need to move America beyond oil as quickly as possible. 

In the 1990s, Shell Oil allegedly enlisted the Nigerian military dictatorship to suppress opposition to Shell's oil operations. A 2002 lawsuit, Kiobel v. Shell, alleges that Shell "aided and abetted" the Nigerian military dictatorship in committing severe human rights abuses against members of the Ogoni people who were involved in a nonviolent movement to stop it from drilling for oil in their rich Niger River Delta homeland. 

But, in a challenge to a 200-year-old law, Shell is arguing that as a corporation it cannot be held responsible for human rights violations abroad.

The company isn't denying the charges; it's claiming that as a corporation it should be able to get away with murder.