Corruption and the Transnational Litigation Prisonerrs Dilemma

Steinitz, Maya; Gowder, Paul

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2476386

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Writing about the Chevron case in Ecuador, Maya Steinitz and Paul Gowder (2016) argue that perceptions of judicial corruption can produce a dynamic akin to the classic game theory model of the prisoner's dilemma. The assumption that the judicial process is corrupt may provoke concerns that one's counterpart may seek to gain an improper advantage by engaging in illegal behavior.…”

Section: Contentious Litigation In Ecuadormentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Ghostwriting in the Amazon? The Role of Experts in the Lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador

Kirsch

2022

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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In 2011, lawyers for the Chevron Corporation filed a civil suit against an aqueous geochemist under federal racketeering and corruption laws. They claimed that the geochemist and her colleagues had ghostwritten significant portions of a report attributed to a court-appointed expert in Ecuador, although the accusation was subsequently withdrawn. The original case addressed the environmental impact of Chevron’s operations in lowland Ecuador, the subject of a $9 billion judgment against the oil company. This article treats legal transcripts and depositions as examples of life writing to examine the contribution of experts to environmental litigation. It adds to recent scholarship on the instability of scientific authorship by comparing different forms of ghostwriting. Whereas the pharmaceutical industry employs ghostwriters to conceal the potentially harmful consequences of its products, the scientists contributing to the case against Chevron sought to make the company’s environmental impacts visible. The company undermined confidence in the legal proceedings in Ecuador by criticizing the experts for the plaintiffs rather than their data, preventing people whose lives and livelihoods have been affected by oil contamination from collecting the judgment against Chevron. This corporate strategy may have a chilling effect on the willingness of environmental scientists and other expert witnesses to provide evidence against powerful corporations. There is a need for better accounting of scientific research undertaken in support of environmental litigation, especially given the high stakes of legal contests like this one, in which corporate fortunes, human lives, and the fate of the environment are contingent on their technical expertise.

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Section: Contentious Litigation In Ecuadormentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Ghostwriting in the Amazon? The Role of Experts in the Lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador

Kirsch

2022

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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“…Irrespective of whether they are real or imagined, investors may have lingering concerns about the integrity and independence of the local adjudicative process. 64 Mixed empirical results suggest that this concern may be warranted, as foreign litigants have been sufficiently concerned about anti-foreigner bias that only the most meritorious claims were brought to national courts, 65 and some research on U.S. domestic courts suggests courts may favor in-state litigants. 66 Even if an investor pursued national court litigation, there is still no viable, broad international enforcement regime for foreign court judgments.…”

Section: History Of Investment Dispute Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to Investment Treaty Arbitration (ITA) and Framing the Debate

Franck

2019

Arbitration Costs

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Chapter 1 introduces the contents of the book by framing the context of international investment more broadly, contextualizing investment-related conflict management, identifying the issues related to cost, and exploring how cognitive psychology and data-driven analysis can offer a frame for considering the relative value of normative reform. After the initial framing, Chapter 1 provides an overview of international investment, with a historic context and a matrix for understanding the current dispute resolution options to set the stage for consideration of alternatives. It then describes ITA’s doctrinal foundation to explore the debate about the costs and benefits of ITA. The final section addresses the need to appreciate the relative value of policy options to make grounded, evidence-based normative choices for investment treaty dispute resolution.

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Effectiveness of Current International Arbitration Law and Practice for Commercial Contracting Parties, in Transnational Oil and Gas Industry

Muhammad¹

2016

SSRN Journal

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Corruption and the Transnational Litigation Prisonerrs Dilemma

Cited by 3 publications

References 18 publications

Scientific Ghostwriting in the Amazon? The Role of Experts in the Lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador

Scientific Ghostwriting in the Amazon? The Role of Experts in the Lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador

Introduction to Investment Treaty Arbitration (ITA) and Framing the Debate

Effectiveness of Current International Arbitration Law and Practice for Commercial Contracting Parties, in Transnational Oil and Gas Industry

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