The UK Supreme Court ruled on Friday that two Nigerian communities of more than 50,000 people can sue the Shell oil company and its Nigerian subsidiary in British courts. Nnimmo Bassey, an environmental justice advocate in Benin City, Nigeria, tells The World’s Marco Werman how local residents are pursuing compensation for oil spills and pollution that have devastated their once lush farmland and fishing grounds.
BBC News
By Jayne McCormack
Published
image copyrightReuters
image captionCampaigners on both sides of the issue took the streets of Belfast in September 2019, a month before NI s abortion laws changed significantly
The sensitive issue of abortion has long divided opinion in Northern Ireland.
In recent years, the laws have changed and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is now attempting to amend them again.
The laws covering abortion in Northern Ireland were initially the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, and later the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Act and Infant Life (Preservation) Act in 1945.
In the vast majority of circumstances, it was a criminal offence in Northern Ireland to have or perform an abortion.
16 February 2021 7:54 GMT Updated 16 February 2021 7:54 GMT in London
OPINION: Two recent ground-breaking legal judgements in the Netherlands and the UK against Anglo-Dutch supermajor Shell have widened the circumstances in which multinational companies can be held responsible for the activities of subsidiaries.
ENERGY EXPLORED: SUBSCRIBE TO ACCELERATE
Gain valuable insight into the global oil and gas industry s energy transition from
ACCELERATE, the free weekly newsletter from Upstream and Recharge.
On 29 January,
a Dutch court found Shell liable for pollution caused by its Nigerian subsidiary in two Niger Delta villages and also ordered Shell to install a leak detection system on an oil pipeline.
Child trafficking victim forced to work on Cambs cannabis farm awarded £22K after violation of human rights cambridge-news.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cambridge-news.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The rule against penalties – a primer
For well over a century, commercial parties have stipulated liquidated damages clauses (LD clauses) in contracts to avoid the cumbersome task of assessing damages payable upon the occurrence of an event, typically, a breach of contract. However, such clauses risk being unenforceable if they flout the rule against penalties. The courts in most Commonwealth jurisdictions (including Singapore) have traditionally regarded LD clauses as penalties that are unenforceable if they do not represent a genuine pre-estimate of loss, and go beyond compensating a party for its loss.
This approach reflects a judicial policy of ensuring that parties do not ‘overreach’, and has its roots in Lord Dunedin’s judgment in