"The United Nations human rights body said Thursday that a former environmental lawyer’s house arrest on contempt charges was illegal and called on the U.S. to release him.

Steven Donziger in the early 1990s sued Texaco on behalf of a group of Ecuadorean farmers and indigenous people, alleging major environmental harms by the energy company. An Ecuadorean court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in 2011 and ordered Chevron, which had since acquired the company, to pay $9.5 billion.

In a countersuit in the U.S., Chevron accused Donziger of bribery and witness-tampering. Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in Chevron’s favor, and Donziger incurred the contempt charges during the appeals process."

Zack Budryk reports for The Hill September 30, 2021. [2]