The jury’s verdict struck a brutal blow to civil society. On 19 March, a jury in a North Dakota courtroom ordered three Greenpeace organisations to pay US$666 million to the oil and gas company Energy Transfer Partners.

Greenpeace is a global network whose coordinating body, Greenpeace International, is based in the Netherlands, alongside several national organisations that have considerable autonomy. The court case focused on three entities: Greenpeace Fund and Greenpeace Inc, both based in the USA, and Greenpeace International. It concerned their alleged role in protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, an underground link built in 2016 and 2017 to carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois.

The jury found in favour of Energy Transfer’s allegations that Greenpeace organised protests that caused damage and disruption and defamed it in public statements, resulting in financial losses. Greenpeace Inc and Greenpeace Fund have announced they’ll appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court, while Greenpeace International is pursuing legal action in the Netherlands.

Civil society is clear that the case, while devastating for Greenpeace and climate and environmental campaigners, is also part of a bigger problem. There’s little doubt the lawsuit is a SLAPP – a strategic lawsuit against public participation.

SLAPPs are a growing problem. They’re brought by corporations and wealthy people to silence criticism and limit people’s participation, including in protests. When companies fear the threat of public backlash if they’re seen to be directly stifling dissent, they can use their resources to turn suppression into a formal, legal process. The aim is either to tie civil society organisations, activists and media up in expensive legal actions that drag on for years, or use the threat of these to make them decide an apology and retraction is the only option.

Indigenous-led protests

The construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline was met with protests from Indigenous people from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, who were particularly concerned about potential threats to their water. Matters came to a head when construction workers bulldozed a site the community considered sacred. At the peak of protests, thousands gathered in camps, and an occupation of the construction site was met with militarised violence.

The protest movement, one of the biggest mobilisations against a fossil fuel company in US history, forged national and international connections and received worldwide coverage, but was fundamentally a self-organised protest by the people of Standing Rock. Greenpeace organisations played a subsidiary role: Greenpeace Inc provided training in non-violent direct action and other organisational support and published articles saying the same things as other organisations that weren’t sued for defamation. Greenpeace International was one of around 500 organisations that signed a widely circulated open letter.

The Indigenous people who took part in the protests didn’t do so because Greenpeace directed them to, and many who protested had no idea Greenpeace had any involvement. Yet Greenpeace has been held wholly responsible for the alleged damage and disruption caused. To assume Indigenous people can’t lead movements and speak for themselves is demeaning and racist.

The intention behind the court case seems clear: to target Greenpeace, one of the world’s biggest and best-known environmental movements, and send a chilling signal to civil society to rein in criticism of oil and gas companies at a time when civil society is doing all it can to challenge them over the climate crisis. Energy Transfer’s CEO, Kelcy Warren, made the reason for the lawsuit explicit, saying the main objective was to ‘send a message’.

There are many other apparent problems with the case. Independent witnesses have condemned what they saw as a grossly unfair trial. It was held in a district where fossil fuel companies have a strong presence. Most of the jurors had connections with the fossil fuel industry, and some were selected even after admitting they couldn’t be fair. The judge is accused of making dubious decisions about what evidence could be heard. The trial was preceded by a publicity blitz that portrayed the company in a positive light. In contrast, the trial was shrouded in secrecy, with no live streaming or release of transcripts.

The verdict, if allowed to stand, could have a broader chilling effect on the right to protest, making it less likely for well-known campaigning organisations to take part in protests for fear of being held liable for any damage or disruption caused. It comes at the same time as the Trump administration’s chilling effect on protest and free speech in the USA, particularly for people expressing solidarity with Palestine. So much for the US constitution’s First Amendment guarantees of freedom of assembly and speech.

SLAPPs: a growing problem

In recent years, civil society has increasingly taken to the courts to hold governments and corporations accountable for their climate and environmental commitments and protect human rights from climate and environmental impacts. They’ve scored some important victories.

Just last year, a group of older Swiss women won a groundbreaking precedent in the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that the government was violating their rights by not doing enough to cut greenhouse gas emissions. South Korea’s Constitutional Court found that the lack of emissions reduction targets breached the constitutional rights of young people and ordered the government to change the law. India’s Supreme Court ruled that people have a fundamental right to be free from the harmful impacts of climate change. In Ecuador, a court recognised the rights of a river and ordered the authorities to clean it up. In Italy, civil society won a court case over pollution caused by intensive hazelnut production, the third in a series of successful legal challenges. At the last count, climate lawsuits had been filed in 55 countries.

But fossil fuel companies have taken notice of civil society’s litigation successes and are fighting back through the courts. They have the deep pockets needed to hire expensive lawyers and sustain SLAPP actions over the long run. Fossil fuel companies have filed over 150 SLAPPs in the USA alone since 2012.

This isn’t the first SLAPP Greenpeace has faced in response to its activism. Shell is currently pursuing a SLAPP against Greenpeace in the UK and last year a French court dismissed one brought by TotalEnergies. In 2016, logging company Resolute Forest Products sued Greenpeace Canada and other Greenpeace organisations in Canada and the USA, alleging defamation and racketeering in response to a campaign Greenpeace ran about the company. US courts found some of the company’s claims to be SLAPPs and dismissed them. But a final resolution only came with an out-of-court agreement in 2024, eight years on.

Crucially, it was a Californian court that found some of those claims to be SLAPPs. It’s one of 35 US states, plus the District of Columbia, that have introduced anti-SLAPP laws, recognising SLAPPs as a threat to civic freedoms. These typically allow those targeted by SLAPPs to have cases dismissed early, before major energy and resources have been committed, and to recover legal costs. But unlike Texas, where Energy Transfer is headquartered, North Dakota doesn’t have an anti-SLAPP law, which made it an ideal venue for the company to refile its lawsuit after it was dismissed by a federal court in 2019.

Corporations and wealthy people are using SLAPPs not just against civil society’s work to defend the environment and urge climate action, but more generally against people and organisations that expose corruption and human rights abuses. Many SLAPPs have been brought against journalists and media outlets, making clear what SLAPPs are all about: suppressing negative publicity for companies and people who do things that would outrage many.

Fortunately, as the number of SLAPPs grows, so does awareness of the problems they pose. In addition to the many state-level laws in the USA and national laws in countries such as Australia, the Philippines and Thailand, the EU adopted its Anti-SLAPP Directive in February 2024. It establishes minimum standards for laws to protect against SLAPPs, which EU states must incorporate into domestic law. It covers transnational SLAPPs, while also encouraging states to act against domestic SLAPPs. Civil society influenced its text and is urging states to pass the national laws required quickly. There’s a great need for them to do so: in 2023, the latest year for which data is available, 820 SLAPP cases were in progress in Europe.

It’s thanks to this EU directive that Greenpeace International is able to take legal action in the Netherlands. The final outcomes of the current court cases will reverberate throughout civil society globally. Courts should dismiss the SLAPPs brought against Greenpeace and stand against these attempts to silence legitimate criticism.

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