While growing up in the Ecuadorian Amazon in the 1980s, Comps Córdova and his friends engaged in an unusual contest while swimming in the Dureno River: They would race to outpace one of the patches of oil frequently seen floating downriver. Córdova, now 43, couldn’t have imagined then that three decades later he’d succeed his 83-year-old father in seeking redress for oilfield pollution in the region—much less that he’d likely have to pass that baton to his own children. But a recent arbitration decision ensures that the rainforest region’s residents remain a long way from securing the accountability and compensation they demand in connection with the large-scale dumping of oilfield drilling wastes that took place there from 1964 to 1992. On Aug. 30, a tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague rejected the legitimacy of a US$9.5 billion judgment that an Ecuadorian... [Log in to read more]