Law of the Jungle

August 4, 2014
Barrett (Glock) details a decades-long environmental case between Ecuadorian citizens and the oil-company Chevron that veers from legal drama to bizarre farce. Texaco’s two decades of oil production in the Oriente region of Ecuador resulted in environmental contamination for which they were originally sued by lawyer Steven Donziger and others in a 1993 class-action lawsuit. In the following decade, Texaco was taken over by Chevron, the case was dismissed in the U.S. courts, and a trial began in Ecuador. Both Chevron’s and Donziger’s tactics led Barrett to describe the trial as a “kidney-punching, shin-kicking contest.” Chevron paid a third party to concoct a bribery scheme involving Donziger and the judge, while Donziger arranged for the writing of the neutral expert’s testimony and actually attempted to block oil-spill clean-up efforts. In 2011, an Ecuadorian judgment ruled against Chevron for a whopping $18.2 billion, and Donziger was indicted in New York under the civil provisions of the RICO law. The Ecuadorian victory, however, “did not get any oil cleaned up or any sick children treated.” In a story possessing “no shortage of knaves and villains,” Barrett skillfully weighs the ethics of both Donziger and Chevron and finds them wanting.

September 1, 2014

Journalist Barrett (Bloomberg Businessweek) has done it again. As with his previous book Glock: The Rise of America's Gun, the author has written an enthralling, deeply researched volume about the intersection of law and individual rights. The question that readers will have at the conclusion of this one is: Who is the villain in this tale? The Harvard University-educated social activist lawyer Steven Donziger, who sued Texaco (later Chevron) on behalf of Ecuadorian peasants for despoiling the rain forest; the oil company; Ecuador; or all of them? The work benefits greatly from Barrett's use of primary source material and interviews with the participants. After setting the scene in the first three chapters, the author proceeds chronologically from the 1960s, when oil was discovered in Ecuador, to the oil company striking back in court against Donziger in 2013. The final result is still pending. This book excels in describing the peasants' plight, the effect on Ecuador, and the lawyers' battles. Barrett skillfully takes readers inside the players' minds and exposes the underside of high-stakes litigation. VERDICT A sure-fire movie prospect for readers interested in human rights, the environment, and the law. [See Prepub Alert, 3/31/14.]--Harry Charles, St. Louis

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2014
In 2011, Steven Donziger, an outspoken, media-savvy, Harvard-educated lawyer, won a landmark $19.2 billion victory against Chevron (formerly Texaco) in a class-action lawsuit seeking reparations for rural Ecuadorian citizens whose lands and health were damaged by oil drilling. As much as this judgment may sound like an innocent David vanquishing a corrupt Goliath, it turns out that both sides were tainted by moral ambiguity, a sobering truth that emerges slowly but unmistakably in this enthralling true-life courtroom drama from veteran Bloomberg Businessweek writer Barrett. Beginning with the sad plight of the Ecuadorians and their country's environmental devastation, Barrett recounts how Donziger engineered his own celebrity by pouncing on the lawsuit and exploiting the media's appetite for controversy while manipulating judges and legal experts in a case that dragged on in Manhattan and Ecuadorian courts for 20 years. Although legal jargon appears often here, Barrett's prose is far from tedious in telling a story that is almost Shakespearean in scope, featuring a flawed protagonist with good intentions but tragically overreaching ambitions.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)