No Impunity for Toxic Dump

It is often asserted that developing countries lack the manpower and expertise to enforce environmental and health laws contributing to a “race to the bottom” in which companies and enterprises from the developed world flock to set up businesses under lax regulation and enforcement in the developing countries. Although such assertions are probably overstated, the Reuters has an encouraging report on the trial and conviction of two persons in connection with the export and dumping of waste around Abidjan, capital of the Ivory Coast. The waste (residues from gasoline mixed with caustic washings), which caused the death of 17 people and the illness of thousands, according to Reuters, was transported to the Ivory Coast on board a Panamanian registered vessel chartered by the Dutch oil trader Trafigura, who was not charged in the case due to a $200 million out of court settlement with the Ivory Coast government. This might not the be end of the matter for Trafigura, however, as the London based public interest law firm Leigh Day and Co. is lining up a class action lawsuit in London representing more than 20.000 Ivoirians.