Just Stop Oil just took on SHELL in court - but we'll have to wait to see if they won

The hearing to finalise Shell’s anti-protest injunctions against 13 Just Stop Oil supporters and persons unknown has concluded. Judgement will be given at a later date, but lawyers acting for Shell have said that the company will not be seeking costs for anyone named on the injunction owing to the substantive submissions made in court.

Just Stop Oil versus Shell: all our fights

Two Just Stop Oil supporters, Charles Phillip Laurie and Emma Ireland have been representing themselves at the High Court this week to directly challenge Shell ‘s anti-protest injunctions. They are among 13 who have refused to sign undertakings not to take action at oil terminals, petrol stations and Shell’s HQ in future.

The hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice before Mr Justice Dexter Dias relates to three Shell injunctions which were secured in May 2022 following Just Stop Oil’s historic resistance at oil terminals and petrol stations. That campaign led to over 1,000 arrests and had a significant impact on fuel availability at petrol pumps across the South East and the Midlands.

One of the people challenging the injunctions is Charles Phillip Laurie, a father of three, Quaker, and retired civil engineer. In his evidence which he addressed to Shell’s representatives he said:

the products you make will cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of deaths- not in some specified time in the future but in the next few years, probably within my lifetime, certainly within the lifetime of my children.

In his written evidence, Laurie wrote:

The products sold by fossil fuel companies such as Shell are one of the major causes of climate change. These companies know the risks their products pose. Their role is totally malign. They deny the impact, delay action, destroy lives and environments.

They take no responsibility for the output of their products, at all times seeking to maximise their sales which is a death sentence for many people and the planet.

Politicians captive to Big Oil

A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:

Shell, Exxon and their captive politicians have known for over 50 years that burning more oil, gas and coal will lead to catastrophic warming. It is now clear that the collapse of human civilization and the death of millions if not billions of people means nothing to these people. Their only concern is to protect their profits and while hiding the damage that their products cause.

Shell, which generates billions in profit, has spent the last three years persecuting ordinary people who have taken nonviolent action to save lives in the face of continued inaction on the climate emergency. These injunctions are private laws that would prevent anyone from taking action to highlight the role that Shell plays in the ongoing climate crisis, even when criminal laws exist to govern the behaviour that they object to.

No-one should be immune from the consequences of their actions least of all Shell. It’s time they faced the full force of the law. Prosecute the real criminals.

Just Stop Oil says it stands “with our 24 supporters in prison, with the 1,800 victims of our broken criminal justice system imprisoned for over a year without trial and with the 1,700 murdered across the global south, for protecting all our lives”:

Everyone knows that politics is broken and we cannot rely on politicians (or judges) to save us — not from poverty, not from the cost of living crisis, not from complete climate collapse. The Labour government doesn’t work for ordinary people, they work for corporations and billionaires, while supporting genocide in Gaza. It’s time to put this right.

Just Stop Oil out on 2 November

You can join Just Stop Oil and others in Parliament Square on Saturday 2 November at 11:30am to take part in the Politics is Broken bloc at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s National Palestine March.

As a prefigurative day of action we will be actively inviting and welcoming a large number of groups to come together – including the climate and nature movements, palestine solidarity, inequality and democracy movements to join forces and march on Parliament and join us after at the Umbrella Rally, Banquet, Peoples Assembly and After Party.