[Imc-ct] [PressRelease] Nigeria: Court orders Shell to stop gas flaring by April 2007

Tue Apr 11 07:44:36 PDT 2006

MEDIA ADVISORY
Friends of the Earth International

April 11, 2006
For immediate release

NIGERIA: COURT ORDERS SHELL TO STOP GAS FLARING BY APRIL 2007

LAGOS, NIGERIA, April 11, 2006 – The Nigerian High Court decided today 
that oil giant Shell must stop flaring gas in the Iwherekan community in 
Delta State by April 2007, in a welcome victory for the mostly poor 
people affected by the damaging and wasteful practice of flaring in the 
oil-rich Niger delta.

Shell’s managing director in Nigeria and the Nigerian Minister for 
Petroleum have to appear in person before the judge in open court on May 
31 in Benin City with detailed plans for putting gas flares out by April 
2007.

In an earlier judgement of the High Court on 14th November 2005 the 
judge ordered the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited 
(Shell Nigeria) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) 
to stop gas flaring in the Niger Delta, as gas flaring violates 
guaranteed constitutional rights to life and dignity. Flaring in the 
community has continued despite the November judgment in favour of local 
resident Mr Jonah Gbemre and the Iwherekan community.

Nigeria has been the world's biggest gas flarer, and the practice has 
contributed more greenhouse gas emissions than all other sources in 
sub-Saharan Africa combined, as well as poisoning localities with their 
toxic cocktail.

The practice costs Nigeria about US$2.5 billion annually, while about 
66% of its population live on less than US$1 a day. Shell Nigeria has 
said that it does not plan to stop flaring before the end of 2009.

Reverend Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Environmental Rights 
Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, said: “We expect this judgment to 
be respected and that for once the oil corporations will accept the 
truth and bring their damaging and wasteful flaring activities to a halt.”

“Oil giant Shell was told twice now to stop gas flaring. Nevertheless, 
Shell plans to continue flaring until 2009. It is time that Shell starts 
to respect Nigerian law and stops breaching human rights in the 
Iwherekan community and in the rest of Nigeria,“ added Paul de Clerck of 
Friends of the Earth International.

In a February 2006 unrelated development, the Federal High Court of 
Nigeria in Port Harcourt ordered Shell and its partners to pay Southern 
Niger Delta Ijaw communities $1.5 billion in compensation for 
environmental pollution and degradation in the Delta. The sum was 
ordered by the Nigerian parliament in August 2004.

IMAGES of gas flaring are available from 
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/images/shell_nigeria_2006

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

In Nigeria:
Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria:
Chima Williams, lawyer
+234 80 388 59477
+234 80 236 49890
Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director
+234 52602680 (office)
+234 8037274395 (mobile)

In the UK:
Climate Justice Programme, Peter Roderick, co-Director
+ 44 20 7388 3141

In Belgium
Paul de Clerck, Friends of the Earth International
Tel: +32-473 510147 or email: paul at milieudefensie.nl

NOTES TO EDITORS
[1] A copy of the November 2005 court order is available here:
http://www.climatelaw.org/media/media/gas.flaring.suit.nov2005/ni.shell.nov05.decision.pdf

[2] More information on the gas flaring in Nigeria is available in a 
report published in June 2005 by the Climate Justice Programme and 
Environmental Rights Action, ‘Gas Flaring in Nigeria: A human rights, 
environmental and economic monstrosity’, which is available here, in 
both HTML and PDF versions:
http://www.climatelaw.org/media/gas.flaring/report

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