28 June 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS – THE Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) says the Nigerian government has been colluding with multinational oil and gas companies operating in the country to perpetrate environmental and human rights violations.
Mr. Goodluck Diigbo, MOSOP President, said this while reacting to the recent filing by the Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic of an amicus curiae brief with United States Supreme Court in the case filed by families of Ogoni indigenes allegedly murdered for protesting Shell’s activities in the area.
Amicus curiae is a brief filed with the court by someone who is not a party to the case.
The case, Kiobel vs Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., was filed under the Alien Tort Statute, a section of the US statute notable for allowing American courts to hear human rights cases brought by foreign citizens for conduct outside the US
The MOSOP leader said any measure of justice offered by the US Supreme Court would conserve the spirit of the American revolution, even though it can never bring back life or repair the eternal damage that the Ogoni have suffered, adding: “I salute these Harvard lawyers of conscience as the pride of American self-government.”
