• Urgent Action

Urgent Action: ENVIRONMENTAL LAWYER MUST BE PARDONED (USA 55.24)

June 13, 2024

Steven Donziger, a lawyer and environmental rights defender who successfully represented victims of oil dumping in Ecuador by oil company, Chevron, was later sued by Chevron in the USA. He refused to comply with a court order to hand over his electronic devices to Chevron, arguing that such a disclosure could violate attorney-client confidentiality and put his clients at risk. He was convicted of contempt of court and was arbitrarily detained for almost three years under house arrest and several months in prison. President Biden should pardon Mr. Donziger and protect environmental defenders from corporate retaliation.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE UNTIL: June 22, 2024

take action:

  • Write a letter in your own words or using the sample below as a guide to one or both government officials listed. You can also email, fax, call or Tweet them.
  • Click here to let us know the actions you took on Urgent Action 55.24. It’s important to report because we share the total number with the officials we are trying to persuade and the people we are trying to help.

contact information:

President Joseph Biden

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20500, USA

webform*: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

White House Comment line: (202) 456-1111

sample letter:

Dear President Biden,

I am writing to you regarding the situation of Steven Donziger, a US human rights lawyer whose case has garnered international attention and outrage. Mr. Donziger helped Indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador win a landmark pollution judgment against Chevron for having deliberately discharged billions of gallons of oil waste over a period of decades onto Indigenous ancestral lands as a cost-saving measure.

Mr. Donziger was arbitrarily detained in New York after an unfair trial and in retaliation for his human rights work. Mr. Donziger spent close to three years in detention at home and in prison even though the maximum sentence under the charge he faced was six months. The detention followed a long-running smear campaign against Steven Donziger and other human rights defenders by Chevron to delegitimize their work.

Granting a pardon to Mr. Donziger would rectify the human rights violations in the case of Mr. Donziger, demonstrating that corporations cannot continue misusing the US judicial system to target and harass human rights activists, particularly amid the global climate crisis.

I urge you to pardon Mr. Donziger’s 2022 Class B federal misdemeanor conviction and ensure that he can continue his work defending human rights without fear of reprisals.

Yours sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: