In 2005, the lawyers for the Lago Agrio plaintiffs sought precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on account of what the IACHR described as “acts of harassment and threats” and an office break-in “due to their professional work on one high-profile case,” the Lago Agrio case. The IACHR requested precautionary measures:

Given the risks facing the beneficiaries, the Commission asked the Ecuadorian Government to adopt the measures necessary to protect the lives and personal integrity of Alejandro Ponce Villacís, Ermel Chávez, Pablo Fajardo, and Luis Yanza, and to inform the Commission of the steps taken to investigate the incidents that gave rise to the adoption of precautionary measures.

In the last year, I haven’t heard anything about this aspect of the case. But yesterday, the Lago Agrio plaintiffs’ PR people announced that they were “seeking to re-institute” the measures the IACHR took in 2005. They assert (and these seem to me to be just assertions—the press release I have seen does not lay out the evidence to support the assertions) that Chevron is engaged in a “dirty tricks” campaign of surveillance and intimidation against them. If the allegations are true, they are profoundly uncool and unworthy. In any event, I will keep you posted on any further developments on this front.