Royal Dutch Shell’s 8 June offer of US$15.5 million to compensate human rights activists and establish a trust fund in the Niger Delta came on the eve of a scheduled New York courtroom battle with a group of Nigerian, American and British activists. They have pursued their case against the oil multinational since 1996, a year after Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others were executed by General Sani Abacha’s military junta. Although Shell strenuously denies any liability and describes the offer as a ‘humanitarian gesture’, several lawyers hail the case as helping to establish the liability of corporations for human rights abuses in the jurisdictions in which they operate. They point out that Shell failed after several attempts to get the case thrown out of the US courts. Although Shell’s offer settles the legal case brought by the relatives of Ken Saro-Wiwa and others, it will not protect the company from other claims by residents of the Niger Delta. The case presents Shell with some hard choices: Nigeria represents its second biggest global profit centre but has become its riskiest political – and now legal – environment. Six years ago, a group of consultants wrote a confidential report for Shell, warning it that unless it fundamentally changed its operations in Nigeria, it could be forced to stop onshore oil production. There has been no fundamental change in Shell’s activities and the New York case has probably expedited the reduction of its operations in Nigeria.