On Tuesday, the company suffered another setback. Environmentalist and human rights organizations filed a complaint with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) , in rejection to the allegations by the company that the oil spills in the Niger Delta are caused by the local communities.

Shell has confronted lately a trial with environmentalist federation Friends of the Earth Netherlands and four Nigerian farmers due to the environmental pollution caused by oil spills in several towns of the Niger Delta. There have been several legal complaints filed against Shell by the environmentalist organization and Friends of the Earth Nigeria in the past years.

Oil spills caused by Shell in the Niger Delta, several hundreds per year, in addition to gas flaring, are the most emblematic cases of environmental pollution at world level. Gas flaring was banned in Nigeria in 1984.

Friends of the Earth Netherlands estimates that the amount of oil spilled by Shell in Nigeria during the past 50 years is five times higher than that spilled by British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico last year.
In the public hearing which will be held on Wednesday in The Hague, the Dutch Parliament will question Shell representatives about the oil spills and gas flaring in Nigeria. Experts on the issue and environmentalist Geert Ritsema, representing Friends of the Earth Netherlands, will also participate.

“The pressure on Shell to clean up its mess in Nigeria is increasing by the day. Last year, the company was removed from the Dow Jones Sustainability Index due to pollution in the Niger Delta, and recently Wikileaks showed that Shell uses political influence in Nigeria to manipulate the situation in the country”, said Ritsema.

Quoted by a press release issued by Friends of the Earth International, the environmentalist added: “We call on Dutch politicians to make a point of Shell’s responsibility for the problems the company causes in Nigeria”.

Meanwile, Friends of the Earth Netherlands, Friends of the Earth International and Amnesty International filed a complaint with the OECD where they highlight the lack of transparency, inconsistency and deceits by Shell about the causes of the oil spills in Nigeria.
Shell is blaming local communities of carrying out sabotage acts against its pipelines. According to the complaint, Shell uses random figures and there are no independent reviews.

Friends of the Earth International’s chair Nnimmo Bassey, also director of Friends of the Earth Nigeria, was very clear about this issue: “"We monitor spills regularly and our observations often contradict information produced by Shell. Several studies have placed the bulk of the blame for oil spills in the Niger Delta on the doorsteps of the oil companies; particularly Shell.”

The environmentalist added that the company should take its responsibility and “clean up the mess it made in Nigeria”, and also to stop gas flaring. “Communities can’t be blamed for that”, he said.
By mid 2009, Shell accepted to pay compensation worth 15.5 million dollars to the families of several activists murdered by the Nigerian dictatorship in 1995. The plaintiffs accused the company of being an accomplice of these crimes before the New York Federal District Court.

Among the activists murdered by the dictatorship in 1995 was renowned poet Ken Saro-Wiwa, founder of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, created in 1990 to protest against the pollution caused by oil companies in their territories.

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