The Lawrence Summers Memorial Award

The March/April Lawrence Summers Memorial Award* goes to Chevron for seeking nearly $500,000 in legal costs from a group of Nigerian villagers who lost in court after trying to hold Chevron accountable for the shooting of protesters on an oil platform in 1998.

Chevron's claim for reimbursement includes $190,000 in copying charges. The total sum sought by Chevron - $485,000 - would be enough to sustain at least four villages in the Niger Delta for a year, according to the group Justice in Nigeria Now.

Source: Richard Paddock, "Chevron Seeks Reimbursement from Villagers Who Sued Over 1998 Shooting," Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2009.

*In a 1991 internal memorandum, then-World Bank economist Lawrence Summers argued for the transfer of waste and dirty industries from industrialized to developing countries. "Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs (lesser developed countries)?" wrote Summers, who went on to serve as Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration and is the outgoing president of Harvard University. "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. ... I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted; their air quality is vastly inefficiently low [sic] compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City." Summers later said the memo was meant to be ironic.