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OIL

Deep-sea divers demand oil damages from Norway

Seven former deep-sea divers who say their health was damaged during oil industry dives complained to the European rights court on Tuesday that Norway's government had put their lives in danger.

The plaintiffs — five Norwegians, an Icelander and a Swede — are today aged between 51 and 70 and say they suffer from severe lung, brain and hearing problems that were triggered by decompression accidents during dives dating between the 1970s and the 1990s.

The divers contend that Norwegian authorities failed to adequately regulate decompression procedures, a vital process in which a diver gradually returns to normal atmospheric pressure after spending time below the surface.

"The applicants would not have suffered long-term damages had the state taken efficient measures," the lawyer E. Ludvigsen told the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He did not provide his first name.

Ludvigsen said the state kept decompression tables "both confidential and incomprehensible" and failed to force oil companies to disclose their own data.

The Norwegian government argued it should not be found responsible and said any problems were the fault of the diving companies.

Though Norway harmonized decompression procedures in 1991, the plaintiffs said the government should have acted sooner.

Between 350 and 400 divers worked on test rigs in the 1970s while offshore drilling was in its infancy.

In 2002, an independent report found that such dives were carried out without proper controls.

A judgment in the case is not expected for at least several weeks.

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OIL

NGOs take Norway to European Court over Arctic oil exploration

Two NGOs and six young climate activists have decided to take Norway to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to demand the cancellation of oil permits in the Arctic, Greenpeace announced on Tuesday.

NGOs take Norway to European Court over Arctic oil exploration
Northern Norway. Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash.

It’s the latest turn in a legal tussle between environmental organisations Greenpeace and Young Friends of the Earth Norway on one side and the Norwegian state on the other.

The organisations are demanding the government cancel 10 oil exploration licenses in the Barents Sea awarded in 2016, arguing it was unconstitutional.

Referring to the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the organisations claim that the oil licenses violated article 112 of Norway’s constitution, guaranteeing everyone the right to a healthy environment.”

The six activists, alongside Greenpeace Nordic and Young Friends of the Earth Norway, hope that the European Court of Human Rights will hear their case and find that Norway’s oil expansion is in breach of human rights,” Greenpeace said in a statement.

In December, Norway’s Supreme Court rejected the claim brought by the organisations, their third successive legal defeat.

READ MORE: Norway sees oil in its future despite IEA’s warnings 

While most of the judges on the court agreed that article 112 could be invoked if the state failed to meet its climate and environmental obligations– they did not think it was applicable in this case.

The court also held that the granting of oil permits was not contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, in part because they did not represent “a real and immediate risk” to life and physical integrity.

“The young activists and the environmental organisations argue that this judgment was flawed, as it discounted the significance of their environmental constitutional rights and did not take into account an accurate assessment of the consequences of climate change for the coming generations,” Greenpeace said.

On Friday, the Norwegian government unveiled a white paper on the country’s energy future, which still includes oil exploration despite a warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The IEA recently warned that all future fossil fuel projects must be scrapped if the world is to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The Norwegian case is an example of a global trend in which climate activists are increasingly turning to courts to pursue their agenda.

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