As global elites gather in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, the oil giant Chevron was singled out on Friday for a highly competitive—if unflattering—international distinction: the Public Eye Lifetime Award for its extraordinary corporate irresponsibility, which includes monumental environmental destruction in northern Ecuador.
Granted by grassroots organizations at a public ceremony at a hotel in Davos, the winner of the satirical prize was determined by tens of thousands of online voters. The race was close, with Glencore and Walmart coming in a close second, but voters ultimately determined that Chevron deserves the top distinction.
The oil giant, however, declined to attend the ceremony, so Greenpeace Switzerland accepted the award on Chevron’s behalf.
“Chevron is uniquely deserving of a lifetime award for the lifetime of misery they have caused the Ecuadorian Amazon,” Paul Paz y Miño, of the U.S.-based organization Amazon Watch, told Common Dreams over the phone from Davos. “This is not only because of their original pollution—dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste—but because they have ignored every judicial process to hold them to account, even though they were determined liable for $9.5 billion in court of their own choosing.”
“Not only did they refuse to pay,” Paz y Miño added, “but they pointed their finger at their own victims, accusing the people that they poisoned of a global conspiracy to commit fraud. It undermines the very fabric of our society because you can’t simply evade justice because you have the wealth to litigate in perpetuity.”
This is not the first time that Chevron won a Public Eye prize. In 2006, the oil giant won the Public Eye Award for “polluting large areas of pristine rain forest in northern Ecuador.” However, the Lifetime Award is a higher distinction, and it marks an end to the Public Eye awards after 15 years.
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