When big oil pulls out
Symposium on Shell’s legacy in Niger Delta and what comes next brings diverse group of scholars and activists to York University’s Keele Campus
April 9, 2025, TORONTO – With the Shell company having finalized the sale of assets in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, questions remain for those who fought against decades of human rights and environmental abuses in the region: How do you keep Shell accountable for the damage they’ve done? Will divestment be more than a clever PR ploy for big oil and gas?
These questions bring together a diverse group of scholars, community leaders, activists, legal experts and international advocates to York University April 10 and 11, for the two-day symposium: From the Niger Delta, Nigeria to the World - Charting a Global Just Transition Agenda.
The legacy of oil pollution and human rights abuses in the Niger Delta are one of the worst, with Shell even being accused of being complicit in the Nigerian state’s secret sentencing and killing of activists in the 1990s, says Environment and Urban Change Prof. Anna Zalik, one of the organizers of the event.
“Arguably, attention to injustice in the region spurred corporate social responsibility as an industrial movement and was central to creating the environmental justice movement globally. This symposium is an opportunity to take a hard look at this legacy of corporate abuse, resistance, and what comes next,” says Zalik.
From the earliest days of colonization in Nigeria, the British identified Niger Delta as economically useful for resource extraction, and, for the last 60 years, Shell has been involved in oil and gas extraction in the region.
Informed by a report put together by the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission, which declares Shell’s legacy in the region as an environmental genocide, the symposium examines the prospects for a global just transition.
“When the word divestment is used — Shell for example dumping toxic assets on so-called local companies and shirking their historic responsibility to clean up— what does it really mean? There are questions regarding the limitations of the whole idea of just transition,” says York PhD alum Isaac Asume Osuoka, a former Vanier scholar and one of the authors of the Bayelsa Report who will chair the discussion on the report at the symposium.
“This York conference is an opportunity to address those gaps in terms of how this conversation has been framed in dominant discourses.”
The symposium will be held this Thursday and Friday at York University at 519 Kaneff Tower at York University’s Keele Campus, with global environmental justice activist, author, architect, think-tank director and York Honorary Doctorate Nnimmo Bassey giving the keynote speech on Thursday at 3 p.m. Registrants can attend virtually for those unable to make it in person.
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York University is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change, and prepare our students for success. York's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. York’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.
Media Contact:
Emina Gamulin, York University Media Relations, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca
