A North Dakota jury on Wednesday found Greenpeace should pay a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} to a pipeline firm in reference to protests towards the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
The jury discovered Greenpeace chargeable for defamation and different claims and awarded Dallas-based Vitality Switch and subsidiary Dakota Entry greater than $650 million in damages.
The lawsuit accused Netherlands-based Greenpeace Worldwide, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. of defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and different acts.
Greenpeace stated earlier that a big award to the pipeline firm would threaten to bankrupt the environmental group. Following the nine-person jury’s verdict, Greenpeace’s senior authorized adviser stated the group’s work “is rarely going to cease.”
The impartial world campaigning community has been combating for a big selection of environmental points for greater than half a century and has an extended historical past of contentious authorized battles.
Listed below are some issues to know:
Environmental activists based the group in Vancouver, Canada, in 1971.
The community’s first motion was to work to cease extra nuclear weapons checks on Amchitka Island within the Aleutian island chain in southwest Alaska. They took a ship towards the island to “bear witness,” which is a Quaker protest custom, however had been intercepted by the U.S. Navy, in keeping with the Greenpeace web site.
The U.S. later opted to desert their nuclear testing grounds on the island, marking Greenpeace’s first main victory.
Throughout preliminary work to cease the nuclear weapons checks on Amchitka, Canadian ecologist Invoice Darnell was leaving one of many group’s conferences when somebody held up two fingers and stated “peace!” in keeping with Greenpeace’s web site.
Darnell, who is taken into account a founding member of Greenpeace, replied: “Let’s make it a Inexperienced Peace.”
The title was condensed into one phrase so it may match on buttons for the group’s first fundraiser.
Greenpeace describes itself as the biggest environmental campaigning group on the planet. It’s made up of dozens of impartial nationwide or regional organizations in additional than 55 nations, in keeping with its web site.
Its work to protect and restore invaluable ecosystems and push again on fossil gas companies is centered on nonviolent motion. Its protests have ranged from efforts to cease Shell from drilling for oil within the Alaskan Arctic to demonstrations to place an finish to France’s atmospheric checks within the South Pacific to campaigns to preserve Canada’s coastal rainforest.
Greenpeace and its activists have additionally been the goal of fees and lawsuits, together with in 2023 when 4 activists had been arrested for scaling the country estate of former U.Ok. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and draping it in black material to protest his plan to expand oil and gas drilling within the North Sea. They had been later cleared of criminal charges.
It was additionally one of many environmental teams that filed a lawsuit searching for to dam the Willow oil project in Alaska in recent times.
Greenpeace is an impartial community that doesn’t take cash from governments, companies or political events, in keeping with its web site. Its funding comes from particular person contributions, together with basis grants.
In 2023, Greenpeace USA had about $40 million in income and help, and about $38 million in bills, in keeping with its on-line monetary assertion.
Its web site says it doesn’t take into account anybody a everlasting good friend or enemy.
“In case your authorities or firm is prepared to alter, we are going to work with you to attain your goals,” its web site states. “Reverse course, and we might be again.”
