Steven Donziger | Why Chevron Needed To Take Him Down

Steven Donziger is an environmental justice and human rights lawyer who helped Amazon communities in Ecuador win the largest trial court judgment ever against a fossil fuel company. The case, Aguinda v. Chevron, resulted in a$9.5 billion judgment against Chevron affirmed unanimously by both Ecuador's Supreme Court and Canada's Supreme Court for enforcement purposes. Rather than pay the judgment in a court where it had accepted jurisdiction, Chevron vowed to "demonize Donziger" and sued him for billions of dollars using roughly 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers. When Donziger famously appealed a court order to turn over his computer and confidential case file to Chevron, a judge in 2019 charged him with criminal contempt of court. When the federal prosecutor rejected the misdemeanor charge, the same judge appointed a private Chevron law firm to act in the shoes of the US government and prosecute Donziger directly in the nation's first corporate prosecution. This resulted in his arbitrary detention at home and in prison for 993 days in a case that the UN's Working Group On Arbitrary Detention condemned as a violation of international law. Three federal judges – including two from the US Supreme Court – have condemned Donziger's prosecution as unconstitutional. Donziger, who is currently seeking a pardon from President Biden, lives in New York City with his wife and son.