Three lawsuits charge the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and Shell Transport and Trading Company (Royal Dutch Shell), the head of Royal Dutch Shell's Nigerian operations, and the company's Nigerian subsidiary with complicity in human rights abuses against the Ogoni people in Nigeria.
The case, brought in the United States, is set to begin April 27 in New York. It was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and co-counsel EarthRight International on behalf of the families of activists murdered in 1995 while fighting for human rights and environmental justice in Nigeria. The charges ranges from complicity in human rights abuses, summary executions, crimes against humanity, torture, inhuman treatment, arbitrary arrest, wrongful death, assault and battery and infliction of emotional distress.
The Center for Constitutional Right's has made a full summary of the case and its history available.
Also see CESR and Social and Economic Rights Action Center's (SERAC), a Nigerian-based human rights organization, own legal communication submitted to the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in 1996. In 2002, the African Commission found the former Nigerian military government guilty of economic, social and cultural rights violations.
You can also visit the web site dedicated to remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa (pictured above) and the eight other activists who were executed in 1995 by the Nigerian state.