Synopses & Reviews
Paul M. Barrett is an assistant managing editor and senior writer at Bloomberg Businessweek. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun, American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion, and The Good Black: A True Story of Race in America. He lives and works in New York City.
About the Author
The gripping story of one American lawyer’s obsessive crusade—waged at any cost—against Big Oil on behalf of the poor farmers and indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest.Steven Donziger, a self-styled social activist and Harvard educated lawyer, signed on to a budding class action lawsuit against multinational Texaco (which later merged with Chevron to become the third-largest corporation in America). The suit sought reparations for the Ecuadorian peasants and tribes people whose lives were affected by decades of oil production near their villages and fields. During twenty years of legal hostilities in federal courts in Manhattan and remote provincial tribunals in the Ecuadorian jungle, Donziger and Chevron’s lawyers followed fierce no-holds-barred rules. Donziger, a larger-than-life, loud-mouthed showman, proved himself a master orchestrator of the media, Hollywood, and public opinion. He cajoled and coerced Ecuadorian judges on the theory that his noble ends justified any means of persuasion. And in the end, he won an unlikely victory, a $19 billion judgment against Chevon--the biggest environmental damages award in history. But the company refused to surrender or compromise. Instead, Chevron targeted Donziger personally, and its counter-attack revealed damning evidence of his politicking and manipulation of evidence. Suddenly the verdict, and decades of Donziger’s single-minded pursuit of the case, began to unravel.
Written with the texture and flair of the best narrative nonfiction, Law of the Jungle is an unputdownable story in which there are countless victims, a vast region of ruined rivers and polluted rainforest, but very few heroes.
Reading Group Guide
Book club discussion guide for LAW OF THE JUNGLE by Paul M. Barrett
1. Based on the early chapters of the book, what were your initial impressions of Steven Donziger as a lawyer, an activist, and an individual? In what ways did those impressions change as the story unfolds?
2. What relevance to the larger story, if any, did you see in recounting the episodes earlier in Donziger’s life: when he sets out as a young journalist to cover the civil war in Nicaragua, represents Cuban-immigrant prisoners, stirs controversy while still a student at Harvard Law School, and organizes a mission to postwar Iraq?
3. How would you describe Donziger's motivations for joining the oil pollution lawsuit against Texaco (later acquired by Chevron)? Do you think his motives and sense of purpose evolved over time?
4. What do you make of the relationship between Cristóbal Bonifaz, the original lead lawyer of the Aguinda suit, and Donziger, the junior attorney who rose to displace Bonifaz?
5. Did the conduct of Texaco in Ecuador from the late 1960s through the early 1990s surprise you? Why or why not?
6. How much culpability do you think Texaco bears for the ecological harm and effect on the health of indigenous tribespeople that accompanied development of oil reserves in the Amazon? What about the Ecuadorian government and their oil company Petroecuador?
7. Did it make sense for Bonifaz and Donziger to sue Texaco (later Chevron) in U.S. courts? Did it seem reasonable or unfair that the U.S. courts ultimately refused to hear the suit and sent it to Ecuador?
8. By his own admission, Donziger adopted a fight-fire-with-fire (or ends-justify-the-means) strategy in battling Chevron in Ecuador. Was he justified in taking this approach? Did his ends, in fact, justify his means? Do you think he could have won the case without crossing ethical lines?
9. Were you convinced that the health problems suffered by the residents of the Oriente region were linked to oil pollution? Is that question even important? Or is it enough that there was extensive pollution accompanied by human suffering to justify legal liability? How would you apportion responsibility for that suffering?
10. Was Chevron justified in turning the tables on Donziger and seeking to make him and his tactics the central issue?
11. Once Chevron lost in the Ecuadorian courts, was the company justified in refusing to pay up? Did the Ecuadorian legal process, as described in Law of the Jungle, strike you as fair? Do you think the U.S. legal system is more fair?
12. Judge Kaplan, the American federal judge, seemed hostile toward Donziger from the outset of Chevron’s attempt to prove Donziger a fraud. Do you think that hostility ought to have disqualified Kaplan from hearing the RICO case against Donziger?
13. What do you think will happen next in this twenty-one-year-old legal war? What do you think ought to happen next?
14. After reading Law of the Jungle, do you feel more or less admiration for lawyers and our legal system? How about big oil companies? And how about human beings in general?
15. How did reading this book make you feel about the ability of governments and the legal system to address wrongs and solve serious problems?