The Small Matter of Suing Chevron

Suzana Sawyer's book "The Small Matter of Suing Chevron" explores how distinct legal truths were relationally composed of, with, and through crude oil, using chemistry to understand how molecular, technical, and legal agencies catalyzed jurisdictional renderings. It shows how chemical, scientific, contractual, and litigating techniques precipitated the legal saga's metamorphic transformation, transmuting a contamination claim into an environmental liability, then a racketeering scheme, and then a breach of treaty.

Format: Hardback
Length: 416 pages
Publication date: 30 June 2022
Publisher: Duke University Press

In 2011, an Ecuadorian court delivered a landmark environmental contamination liability judgment, imposing a staggering $9.5 billion fine against Chevron. However, the legal saga took an unexpected turn when a US federal court and an international tribunal later determined that the Ecuadorian judgment had been procured through fraud and was unenforceable.

In her book, The Small Matter of Suing Chevron, Suzana Sawyer delves into this intricate legal trilogy, exploring how distinct legal truths were relationally composed of, with, and through crude oil. Sawyer's analysis emphasizes the crucial role of chemistry in understanding the complex interplay between molecular, technical, and legal agencies that shaped the jurisdictional renderings in this case.

Through analytical lenses, Sawyer offers a grammar for appreciating how molecular, technical, and legal agencies catalyzed distinct jurisdictional determinations. She also empirically demonstrates how the chemistry of hydrocarbons, characterized by its complexity, unfathomability, and misattribution, significantly shaped competing judicial decisions.

This legal saga underwent a metamorphic transformation, evolving from a contamination claim into an environmental liability, then a racketeering scheme, and finally a breach of treaty. Sawyer adeptly handles the paradoxes of complicity in suspension, showcasing how crude matters, technoscience, and liberal legality configure how risk and reward, deprivation and disavowal, suffering and surfeit become legally and unevenly distributed.

The Small Matter of Suing Chevron is a thought-provoking exploration of the complex web of legal, scientific, contractual, and litigating techniques that shaped this landmark case. Sawyer's book sheds light on the ways in which oil, as a material and a symbol, intertwines with legal processes, exposing the intricate relationships between corporations, governments, and the environment. It serves as a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of corporate actions and the importance of robust legal frameworks to address environmental harm.

Weight: 703g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478015338