Two different takes on the lawsuit by Ecuadoran environmentalists against ChevronTexaco. NPR's Weekend Edition reported Ecuadorian Environmentalists Sue ChevronTexaco includes accusations by the environmentalists' attorney that Texaco engaged in practices in Ecuador that it wouldn't have in the US. Now,

the Ecuadoran national oil company continues to operate many of the wells originally drilled by Texaco. While the locals blame Texaco for the region's environmental degradation, they often cite recent spills and leaks as evidence.

Meanwhile, a biologist who gathered evidence for the lawsuit says,

In this country, they made PetroEcuador more a political entity more than a productive entity. The government is drawing all the money out of PetroEcuador for other purposes and they have no money.

As this marketplace report makes clear, this is of interest for a number of reasons. It's a test of international law, because the case is being tried in a foreign country, but the judgement will be enforced in the US. What's of interest to me, and what the Weekend Edition report failed to mention is that not only is the company being held to account for what were then standard, acceptable practices, but the company was a minority partner with the foreign state-owned oil company, without that much control over production, and in fact the foreign state-owned companies often refuse to pay for more environmentally friendly practices. But they won't sue their own government, even though it was a partner with Texaco, because it's spent all the money.