Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger stood on ground still scarred by the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, his voice cutting through the silence like a knife as he seeks support to fight back against the culprits responsible for global warming.
“Just days ago, 300 people in Texas drowned in flash floods—children among them—abandoned without warning systems gutted by political malice,” he says, eyes fixed on the horizon where Energy Transfer’s pipeline cuts through stolen land. “Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry escalates its war on those fighting to prevent these disasters. Greenpeace now faces the same corporate assassination playbook Chevron used against me.”
The numbers defy belief: a $669 million judgment against Greenpeace, engineered in a North Dakota courtroom where seven of eleven jurors had direct ties to the fossil fuel industry. No Indigenous voices allowed, though the case revolved entirely around their plundered territories.
Energy Transfer CEO Kelcy Warren—who infamously declared climate activists should be “removed from the gene pool”—built his pipeline without consent, then deployed the same legal mercenaries Chevron used to imprison Donziger for 993 days. Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, the firm rebuked by courts for “legal thuggery,” now leads both crusades.
“I watched it unfold,” Donziger recalls, standing where water protectors once faced attack dogs. “The same biased judge, the same manufactured evidence, the same jury rigged like a casino slot machine. Greenpeace never stood a chance.”
His assessment is no hyperbole: the verdict relied on discredited testimony from a witness later exposed as a paid perjurer—a tactic Chevron perfected in Ecuador with witness Alberto Guerra, who admitted lying after being bankrolled and relocated to the U.S.
Now comes the kill shot: Warren demands Greenpeace post a $75 million bond just to appeal the verdict.
“It’s a financial death sentence,” Donziger states flatly. “They know exactly what they’re doing. When Chevron couldn’t beat us in court, they made sure I’d never practice law again. Warren wants Greenpeace erased from existence.”
The parallel is surgical: like Donziger’s disbarment and arbitrary detention—condemned by UN experts as illegal under international law—the bond weaponizes procedure to silence dissent.
Yet in Amsterdam, a counterstrike unfolds. Greenpeace invokes Europe’s new anti-SLAPP law, suing Energy Transfer for violating its free speech rights.
“This could flip the entire script,” Donziger explains. “Win there, and Warren pays Greenpeace damages. Lose, and corporate lawsuits become the extinction event for environmental resistance.”
The stakes transcend one organization: 43 U.S. states lack anti-SLAPP protections, letting billionaires bankrupt critics through frivolous litigation.
Warren’s North Dakota verdict already echoes in suits against Shell protesters and journalists investigating Exxon.
Donziger’s urgency stems from visceral understanding.
“They’re not just suing Greenpeace—they’re suing the future. When I won $9.5 billion for Ecuadorians poisoned by Chevron, they didn’t attack the science. They attacked me. Personal destruction as corporate policy.”
He cites the playbook: Chevron hired 2,000 lawyers, private investigators to stalk him, PR firms to “demonize” him, and even funded a publication solely to smear his name. All while Gibson Dunn billed millions to turn judges into accomplices.
The Texas drownings hang over his words.
“Children died because lobbyists gutted emergency systems. Now the same industry punishes those who tried to warn us. Warren’s bond demand isn’t law—it’s a ransom note,” Donziger said.
His team races to finalize a UN complaint detailing the trial’s atrocities, but Greenpeace’s clock ticks faster. The $75 million bond could trigger within weeks.
“Greenpeace birthed this movement,” Donziger says, the weight of 30 years in his voice. “If they fall, the signal echoes everywhere: challenge power, and you’ll be buried. But win in Amsterdam? That’s the precedent that terrifies them. For the first time, the corporate predator becomes the prey.”