To the Victors Go the Spoils of War

more on EO 13303, and oil in post-war Iraq, from CorpWatch.org:

"In other words, if ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco touch Iraqi oil, anything they or anyone else does with it is immune from legal proceedings in the US. Anything that has happened before with oil companies around the world -- a massive tanker accident; an explosion at an oil refinery; the employment of slave labor to build a pipeline; murder of locals by corporate security; the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; or lawsuits by Iraq's current creditors or the next true Iraqi government demanding compensation -- anything at all, is immune from judicial accountability..."

- Jim Vallette, an analyst with the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC

of course, this is not the first time mechanisms for human rights have been systematically undermined in the name of oil profits, the on going controversy with BP's publicly funded Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline has similar clause arrangements that affect the company’s culpability in the law courts...