Basic issues in international environmental law - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 18

Figure 1.1 Graffi ti protest against US oil company Texaco in Quito, the capital of
Ecuador in 2003. Texaco's present owner Chevron was in 2011 found liable for com-
pensation totalling $18 billion for environmental damage in the Amazon. Texaco drilled
for oil in the rainforest areas of Northern Ecuador in the 1970s and 1980s. According to
environmental organizations, the drilling resulted in contamination of the soil and water
in the area and violated the rights of the indigenous peoples. Chevron is now adopting
various legal strategies to seek to prevent the enforcement of the ruling and to take it to a
court of arbitration. (Photo © Rebecca M. Bratspies)
Increasing the motivation of business for environmental protection
In general terms, we can see that international environmental law is still
strongly based on treaties negotiated between states. These treaties are used by
states to try to solve international environmental problems, according to the
rules of international law: states being the only actors that can make legally
binding rules. The system of international law does not easily capture the reality
where companies operate in a global market place.