Following a court hearing here earlier this month, the stage is now set for a ruling on whether Texaco should be tried in the United States for environmental damage done in the South American rainforest. Lawyers representing Ecuadorian and Peruvian Indians appeared in Manhattan federal court on Feb. 1 to argue that question before U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. The case involves two class-action lawsuits alleging that a Texaco subsidiary, Texaco Petroleum Company, polluted vast areas of the Amazon rainforest while drilling for oil in Ecuador from 1972 to 1992, harming the environment and human health. Rakoff already has dismissed the suits on jurisdictional grounds once, but last October the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated Rakoff’s ruling and remanded the... [Log in to read more]