Recorded November 1, 2004
Below is the original description of the event.
In November 1993, a Philadelphia law firm filed a $1.5 billion dollar class-action lawsuit against Texaco Inc. in the New York Federal Court on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorian citizens. The plaintiffs sought reparations for alleged health problems and environmental degradation resulting from over 25 years of Texaco's petroleum activity in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Nearly ten years later, after being shuffled back and forth between the U.S. Federal Court and the Court of Appeals, the lawsuit was transferred to Ecuador, and the trial began in October 2003. Professor Sawyer will discuss the case and its implications for citizenship and corporate behavior in Ecuador and beyond.
Suzana Sawyer is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at UC Davis. Her current research focuses on conflict over oil operations in Ecuador. Her new research examines the lawsuit against Texaco, focusing specifically on what it tells us about shifting regimes of citizenship, sovereignty and law.
-Professor Sawyer's homepage at UC Davis