New book explores $19 billion legal battle over oil
Brooklyn BookBeat: Author to Speak in Cobble Hill
In his bestselling book “Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun” (Crown, 2012), author and journalist Paul M. Barrett wove together fifteen years of research and interviews to tell the story of how an obscure Austrian curtain rod manufacturer who spoke barely any English stormed the American gun market, and, in the space of a few years, made his handgun an American icon. Now, in “Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who’d Stop at Nothing to Win” (Crown; on sale Sept. 23), he returns with the story of one man’s obsession with righting the wrongs perpetrated by a major U.S. oil company accused of polluting the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador over a thirty-year period, destroying the lives of local farmers and indigenous tribe members. Barrett will appear in Brooklyn to launch his book at BookCourt on Sept. 23.
Steven Donziger, former journalist and social activist, is a Harvard-educated lawyer who was a classmate and friend of Barack Obama. He first signed on to the budding class-action lawsuit against oil giant Texaco (later Chevron) in 1993 to seek reparations for Ecuadorian farmers and Indians whose lives were disrupted by decades of oil drilling and production in their communities. The massive environmental damage resulted in entire villages losing not only their land but also their livelihoods. Water supplies were contaminated, roads were sprayed with waste petroleum and many people suffered rashes, stomach ailments and even death.
In the face of legal setbacks and a fierce defense by Chevron, Donziger emerged as the lead plaintiffs’ lawyer in the case, even though he had no prior civil courtroom experience. A charismatic, larger-than-life showman, he became a master at manipulating the media and doing combat in the court of public opinion. During 20 years of hostilities that played out in courts in Manhattan, Quito, and the jungle oil town of Lago Agrio, Donziger and Chevron employed tactics that would be considered unethical or worse by any American judge.