I read the document that so impressed you. The tone is heavy into imperious moralizing which rings some sour bells I hear when coming from a corporate lawyer described by the LA Times as “A Hired Gun Of The Highest Caliber”.  Your link was undated but doing some googling I found that it was first published at least as early as 2013. A lot not mentioned by the hired gun happened before then and a lot more has happened since then.  I found out what I could about the author who so impressed you by laying out an obviously one-sided screed in favor of the corporation he represented which of course is what he is paid to do and which screed you call a wonderful doozy. I agree that it is that and more. Theodore J. Boutrous jr., is the author of that wonderful doozy and besides being a Stanford Law Professor is also a corporate lawyer who has established himself as extremely effective in defending corporations such as the one pertinent to this case, Chevron, but many others including Walmmart and Google. He has also taken some cases in which I would be on the same side he defended and he has publicly taken some positions in editorials which I agree with. An example is “Trump’s Justice Department Uses Julian Assange as Stalking Horse to Make Journalism a Crime”. Read it and maybe you will find it to be a wonderfully informative piece too which will change your mind about the wisdom, legality, morality, and legal ethics of Assanges prosecution/persecution which you have vociferously defended.

  All sides of a legal dispute deserve competent legal representation and neither small countries nor giant corporations are exception. Giant corporations can afford the very best though and it is estimated that Chevron spent over two billion dollars on T.J.B. and his team. The  methods they used to rake in those bucks will become evident. 

As my personal starting point, before any evidence is presented, I acknowledge that I would be inclined to believe that Chevron extracted the oil from Ecuador as cheaply as possible and so did it in a sloppy and environmentally damaging way which would make a legal determination that compensation to Ecuador is the correct outcome of the original case. Following are some excerpts from another long legal analysis which, to my mind, supports some of the expectation I have about how a hired gun lawyer of the highest caliber [The grandiose descriptor, “highest caliber”, not having anything to do with a judgment of methods and/or ethics, but only with his success rate] might  go about defending an oil company accused of wrongdoing. 

There are separate cases about whether Donziger acted illegally in the original suit and whether his continuing confinement after over two years already over a charge that carries a 6 month maximum detainment, and has only ever been used to confine anyone for up to 3 in similar cases, is justified. I hope you and anybody convinced as you are that THEODORE J. BOUTROUS JR’s paper clears it all up neatly and makes it clear who is guilty reads the case as laid out in the report by the,  “Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Opinions adopted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at its ninety-first session, 6–10 September 202 Opinion No. 24/2021 concerning Steven Donziger (United States of America)”. 

Following are a few copy and paste excerpts from their submission. I show only a few of the high points but there is a lot but I leave out  A LOT MORE that is relevant.

7. The source states that, to avoid paying the damages, Chevron Corporation moved its assets out of the country during the trial, leading the plaintiffs to seek enforcement actions in other countries. Corporation officials reportedly threatened the claimants with “a lifetime of litigation” unless they dropped their case and promised that the Corporation would “fight until hell freezes over and then fight it out on the ice”.9. Chevron Corporation allegedly used administrative procedures available in United States federal courts to direct the racketeering case to a judge who had presided over related document discovery litigation. According to the source, in the course of that litigation, Judge K did not “disguise his disdain” for Mr. Donziger and suggested from the bench that the suit against the Corporation was “nothing more than a cynical con”. Judge K also seemed to indicate to the Corporation’s attorneys that he would be supportive of a racketeering lawsuit against Mr. Donziger, were they to file one. [They quickly did]

10. According to the source, Chevron Corporation initially brought claims against Mr. Donziger for roughly $60 billion in damages. Those claims granted Mr. Donziger the right to a jury trial. However, two weeks before the trial was scheduled to begin, the Corporation dropped its claims for fiscal damages, removing the legal basis for a jury. Consequently, the fact-finding decision was left to the sole discretion of Judge K.11. It is reported that, during the trial, Judge K denied the defendants the opportunity to present scientific evidence of Chevron Corporation’s alleged pollution and corrupt activities in Ecuador, including the results of tests run on 64,000 chemical samples. Judge K also refused to examine or consider the evidence used by Ecuador’s courts to reach the verdict. However, he allowed the Corporation to present “secret” and anonymous witnesses who could not be effectively cross-examined due to purported security threats. In addition, Judge K allowed the Corporation to present a witness who conceded that it was paying him a monthly “stipend” of a sum of 20 times his former salary.

16. Mr. Donziger reportedly exercised his right to appeal that decision by voluntarily going into civil contempt of court, rather than surrender his devices and accounts to the forensic experts. Judge K then drafted criminal contempt charges against Mr. Donziger. Judge K referred the case to the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which declined to pursue prosecution. Judge K took the allegedly unusual and extraordinary decision to appoint a private law firm, which later admitted to a conflict of interest, given that Chevron Corporation had been a client of the firm in 2018, to prosecute Mr. Donziger in the criminal contempt of court case.

20. Mr. Donziger had been detained at home for over 500 days, as at the time of submission of the source’s communication, even though the longest sentence possible if he were to be convicted is six months’ imprisonment, and the longest sentence actually imposed for similar charges is three months’ home detention. On 18 May 2020, Judge P reportedly denied Mr. Donziger’s demand for a jury trial on the basis that the possible punishment did not exceed six-months’ incarceration or a $5,000 fine.

25. The source claims that there have been concerns about the perceived bias of Judge K, who made public his personal opinion of Mr. Donziger’s character before the racketeering lawsuit was filed. In September 2010, Judge K reportedly stated that Mr. Donziger was “trying to become the next big thing in fixing the balance of payments deficit. I got it from the beginning … The object of the whole game, according to Donziger, is to make this so uncomfortable and so unpleasant for Chevron that they’ll write a check and be done with it … to persuade Chevron to come up with some money.” He asked: “now, do the phrases Hobbs Act, extortion, [and] RICO, have any bearing here?”3 Four months later, Chevron Corporation filed its racketeering complaint.

27. Allegedly, the concerns over Judge K’s perceived bias did not stop him from assigning the case lodged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to his own court in 2011, instead of letting it be assigned by lot.

30. According to the source, under United States Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 42, the court must request an attorney for the Government to prosecute contempt. The case against Mr. Donziger was referred to the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which declined to pursue prosecution. In response, Judge K took the allegedly unusual decision to appoint a private law firm, which later admitted to a conflict of interest, given that Chevron Corporation had been its client in 2018, as private prosecutors in the criminal contempt case.31. The source reports that Judge K also personally selected Judge P to preside over the criminal contempt charges, which, according to the source, bypassed rule 16 of the Rules for the Division of Business Among District Judges, which states that “the assignment committee shall transfer the case by lot”.

75. The Working Group recalls that it is inherent to the proper exercise of judicial power that it be exercised by an authority that is independent, objective and impartial in relation to the issues dealt with,18 as asserted by the Human Rights Committee in relation to article 9 (3) of the Covenant. In the present case, the Working Group is of the view that Judge P did not act in a manner which was independent, objective and impartial in relation to Mr. Donziger’s case. Consequently, the Working Group concludes that the imposition of pretrial detention upon Mr. Donziger was in violation of article 9

83. The Working Group turns to the examination of the uncontested allegation that Mr. Donziger is held in pretrial detention based on criminal charges of contempt, given that those charges stem from his decision to uphold his professional duty as a lawyer towards the confidentiality of his clients.

84. The Working Group is appalled by the uncontested allegations in the case. The charges against, and the detention of, Mr. Donziger appear to be in retaliation for his work as a legal representative of indigenous communities, because he refused to disclose confidential correspondence with his clients in a very high-profile case against a multinational business enterprise. In that regard, the Working Group recalls that, under principle 14 of the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, lawyers are required to act freely and diligently in accordance with the law and recognized standards and ethics of the legal profession at all times. Under principle 22 thereof, Governments are required to recognize and respect that all communications and consultations between lawyers and their clients within their professional relationship are confidential. In the present case, Mr. Donziger provided various options on how he could cooperate with the judiciary of the United States without violating his professional duty of confidentiality towards his clients, making explicit his concerns over the need to uphold his ethical duty as a lawyer. Nevertheless, he was arbitrarily deprived of his liberty on 6 August 2019, as the Working Group has established above.

88. In the light of the foregoing, the Working Group renders the following opinion:

The deprivation of liberty of Steven Donziger, being in contravention of articles 2, 3, 7, 10 and 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and articles 2 (1), 9, 14 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is arbitrary and falls within categories I, III and V.

97. The Working Group recalls that the Human Rights Council has encouraged all States to cooperate with the Working Group and has requested that they take account of its views and, where necessary, take appropriate steps to remedy the situation of persons arbitrarily deprived of their liberty, and inform the Working Group of the steps that they have taken.25

[Adopted on 6 September 2021]

As I said before, there is a LOT more that is worth reading.