King's College London

In 2008, two massive oil spills from Shell’s former Nigerian arm dumped over 500,000 barrels into the Niger Delta, twice the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster. By late 2009, more than 18,000 hectares were contaminated, including 5,000 hectares of mangroves, with 1,000 hectares wiped out.

The case was heard from 8 to 21 May in the High Court of Justice King’s Bench Division, Technology and Construction Court, to ensure that Bodo Creek, on which the community relies, is properly cleaned and remediated. Dr Ogowewo provided his expert legal opinion to the court on 21 May, and via a 20,000-word report on remediation. The judgment is expected in around three months’ time.

The research for this work has resulted in the upcoming paper “Equity to the Rescue in Transnational Environmental Law: The Case for a Remediation Remedy by Way of Mandatory Injunctive Relief following the Supersession of the Common Law”. The paper is to be presented at two international conferences – July and August 2025 (International Conference on Environmental and Natural Resources Law (ICENRL-25), Male, Maldives and 15th International Conference on Environmental Pollution and Remediation (ICEPR 2025), Paris, France) and will be submitted for peer review in September 2025.

Dr Ogowewo is qualified as a Barrister in England and Wales. He is a Senior Member of Faculty at The Dickson Poon School of Law and has acted as Visiting Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore as well as Hauser Global Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. He has been cited by the High Court of England and Wales and the Supreme Court of Nigeria.