Symbolic Episodes in the Quest for Environmental Justice

The Niger Delta Agitation for Resource Control: Making Sense of Common Law Private Property Ownership Principles in the Management and Control of Oil Resources in Nigeria

“…48 of crude oil to fulil the aspirations of environmental justice. 56 In other words, even though the ownership of the oil was vested absolutely in the federal government, the communities owned the land beneath which the resources were situated and therefore reserved several beneicial rights, among which was the right to negotiate directly with oil companies concerning land use issues, such as rent, lease, tenure and compensation. 57 The Act is described as the "most dramatic of the barrage of pro-oil statutes".…”

Corporate accountability to the poor? Assessing the effectiveness of community-based strategies

“…The huge rents that Nigerian military governments have received over a number of decades from Shell's operations in the Niger Delta, for example, have served to strengthen the government's resolve to silence local activists campaigning against the environmental and social impacts of oil extraction (Okonta and Douglas 2001;Obiora 1999 For example, in Ecuador negotiations have secured corporate responsiveness in terms of providing community projects or infrastructure. However, these "successes" amount to philanthropy rather than accountability in practice, as citizens generally enter these negotiations without much bargaining leverage and, therefore, have to accept whatever the company is prepared to give, rather than being able to assert their rights (Kimmerling 1996).…”