Facing a pivotal federal investigation into Louisiana’s relationship with petro-chemical companies, the state’s attorney general hired lawyers who were simultaneously representing one of the main corporations at the center of the investigation, documents reveal.
The revelations, contained in documents released under public records requests, have led to allegations of a major conflict of interest and come just weeks after the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] dropped its civil rights investigation.
Internal emails, contracts and payments, show that the office of the attorney general, Jeff Landry, hired two lawyers to enter closed-door negotiations with the EPA during the 14-month civil rights investigation. But John King and Tim Hardy were also representing the Taiwanese chemicals firm Formosa in separate litigation, challenging a decision to revoke the company’s state air permits. (Moran and Sneath 2023).
The U.S. subsidiary of Formosa Plastics Corp (1301.TW) has agreed to pay $7.5 million and to cooperate with plaintiffs to settle an antitrust lawsuit alleging the company and others curbed the supply of a widely used chemical in a scheme to inflate prices. (Scarcella, August 16, 2023)
“Wu and Wu’s book ends with an appeal to people to buy wetlands in an attempt to save Taiwan’s dolphins. They can do this through a trust fund set up by the Changhua Environmental Protection Union and other environmental groups (Wu and Wu 233). Chia-yang Tsai and others set up this national trust fund, the first of its kind in Taiwan, when they became aware that if regional plans were approved by the government, 2,000 hectares of tidal mudflats could be sold to Kuokuang Petrochemical at the low rate of NT$100 per square meter (Nelson).” (Chang, 2023, p. 177)
“The operators of the trust competing with Kuokuang project stakeholders offer to purchase land from the government for NT$119 a share. If enough people buy a share, the land can be saved from industrial development (Nelson). As Rui-bin Chen says, “[o]ne share or 100 shares, anyone can be a landowner!” (qtd. in Nelson). The national trust fund represents the power of the general public, and it stresses spontaneity and participation in maintaining the commons (ecological environments and cultural and historical sites).” (Chang, 2023, p. 177)
“The anti-Kuokuang campaign resists top-down regulatory controls and solutions by working at the grassroots level to draw public attention to issues. For example, the campaign invites pop singers and local lyric writers to reach out to different ethnic groups and generations. Taiwanese singer Bobby Chen wrote the song “My Grandmother is a Matsu Fish” (Chang, Tie-zhi) to raise awareness about the impact of the petrochemical plants on the endangered dolphins. It refers to Matsu, the sea goddess widely worshipped by people in Taiwan and southeastern China as the protector of fishermen and sailors, as well as to the Chinese white dolphin (CWD), an animal species that also is known as a friend of shipwrecked sailors.” (Chang, 2023, p. 177)
The Formosa Monitor Alliance (MFA) is run by a coalition of Taiwanese NGOs, including Covenants Watch, Taiwan Association for Human Rights, Environmental Rights Foundation, and Environmental Jurists Association. The MFA has posted news articles, short interviews with local priests and legal analyses, with introductions to relevant laws such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights (UNGPs).
Self-description of the group on social media:「監督台塑越鋼聯盟」由長期聲援台塑越鋼受害者的團體們組成，旨在為台塑越鋼汙染案的受害者爭取賠償、倡議環境正義，並監督政府及企業履行其人權義務。
In social science literature, the Formosa Vietnam disaster is considered a key example for the importance of transnational environmental advocacy networks (Fan et al. 2021). Catholic priests and the US-based organization Justice for Formosa Victims (JfFV) have called for the release of imprisoned activists and for adequate compensation of impacted fisheries. More recently, after several attempts to gain jurisdiction in Vietnam, a group of 7,800 plaintiffs launched a civil lawsuit against Formosa in Taiwan’s supreme court. Beyond the repression experienced by activists in Vietnam, lawyers involved in the case have cited limited recourse to international law in Taiwan, expensive court filing fees, and other bureaucratic measures as challenges to the lawsuit.
Since 2015, a group of Yunlin residents has been leading a toxic tort case that – following several dismissals at the district court level – is now pending in the City of Tainan’s high court (Jobin 2021a; Lin 2021). Importantly, the mobilization has prompted social science analysis of Formosa’s “good neighbor” policies and compensations (Jobin 2021a; Lin 2021), the use of air pollution monitoring data (Tu 2020), and the central role of lawyers within the movement (Jobin 2021b). The litigation focuses both on the shortcomings of corporate social responsibility efforts and the failure to enforce Taiwan’s Public Nuisance Disputes Mediation Act voted into law in 1992 (Jobin 2021b, 80). In addition to analysis of interactions in the courtroom, analysis shows that Japanese law and legal precedents, as well as the US legal system, act as a role model for anti-Formosa class action lawsuits (Jobin 2021b, 32).
Building on his research on Formosa Plastics, sociologist Paul Jobin (2021a) has coined the term “civic eco-nationalism” to characterize Taiwanese environmental activism emerging over the last two decades – defined as “a mix of nationalism, ecology, and the spirit of democracy” (2021, 61). According to Jobin, resistance against Formosa demonstrates that struggles for independence, democratic institutions, and a Taiwanese national identity are integral to the island’s environmental activism (2021a, 60). Unlike other liberal democracies, Taiwanese politics operate along a split between the pro-China Kuomintang (KMT, blue camp) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, green camp). While the KMT has been in support of polluting industries and discouraging them from moving to the mainland, the DPP is known for keeping a lower profile, often contradicting electoral promises and therefore producing tension with more critical environmental movements (Jobin 2021a, 65). This gap in institutional politics, Jobin argues, is a key reason why social movements have developed a distinct form of civic eco-nationalism.
A prominent example of civic eco-nationalism for Jobin is the weekly environmental television show “Our Island”, founded in 1998 alongside Taiwan’s Public Television Station (PTS) (Jobin 2021a, 63). As the station's longest-running program, a main goal is to explore Taiwan’s marine and coastal environments which civilians were not allowed to enter under martial law (Jobin 2021a, 63). The team of journalists led by acclaimed documentary director Chin-Yuan Ke has produced several TV episodes that directly critique Formosa Plastics’ pollution. Such critical reporting is especially important in light of the company’s many attempts to control media narratives. Yunlin County, for example, Formosa has published a controversial corporate newspaper (“Kisses and Hugs”) that has been widely criticized for downplaying and denying the effects of air pollution (Chan 2020). While Our Island focuses largely on domestic developments, the team was also the first to cover disaster response at Formosa’s Steel plant in Vietnam.