India's Supreme Court this week delivered a ruling that could drastically change the way international ships are dismantled, but in the process cleared the way for the destruction of the ship formerly known as the Exxon Valdez.

The symbol of America's worst oil tanker spill, the vessel is now the Oriental Nicety after a series of ownership changes since the 1989 disaster.

It's been anchored off India since May, when the court blocked it from being beached at the infamous Alang shipbreaking yard. Activists had sued, arguing that importing such ships for dismantling violated the U.N. Basel Convention, an international treaty on hazardous waste transport.

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In its ruling Monday, the court acknowledged that violation, drawing praise from activists who want ships recycled using tougher health and environmental standards.

"Hopefully this ruling will be the beginning of the end of the dark ages of ship recycling," Jim Puckett, director of the Basel Action Network (BAN), said in a statement. "Hundreds of poor and desperate laborers have been killed or exposed to hazardous chemicals as a result of the disastrous shipbreaking practices on Indian beaches."

But activists were perplexed when the court exempted the Oriental Nicety.

"Oddly enough, the court acknowledged in its ruling that there may be toxic material in the Exxon Valdez that has not yet been discovered," Colby Self, director of BAN's Green Ship Recycling Campaign, told NBC News.

The court concluded any dangerous material would be "exposed only at the time of actual dismantling of the ship."

"It is made clear that if any toxic wastes embedded in the ship structure are discovered during its dismantling, the concerned authorities shall take immediate steps for their disposal at the cost of the owner," India's top judges wrote in their order, which was reported by The Hindu newspaper and other Indian news media.

Longer term, the question will be whether the broader ruling is enforced. 

Self voiced optimism but acknowledged that "political pressure is extremely high given the immediate economic impacts of this measure."

"The upcoming challenge is seeing that officials follow the court order," he said. One scenario, he noted, is that the local pollution control board might just issue a directive "to outwit the court's ruling."

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LONDON -- Around 11,000 Nigerian villagers who say their livelihoods were ruined in oil spills launched a legal battle Friday to seek compensation from Shell.

The case marks the first time any oil firm has faced claims in the U.K. from a community in the developing world for environmental damage caused by oil extraction operations, the villagers' lawyers said.

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Shell, the largest international firm operating in Nigeria, admitted liability for two oil spills in August 2011. However, the two sides dispute the amount of oil spilled and the extent of the damage caused, one of the villagers' London-based lawyers told msnbc.com.

At the crux of the disagreement is whether the spills that devastated the area were due to so-called operational failures on the part of Shell, or if they were the result of sabotage, illegal refining and theft.

Farmers, fishermen
Shell Petroleum Development Company (Nigeria) has admitted responsibility for two spills amounting to around 4,000 barrels. 

However, experts representing people in the Bodo community, a network of 35 villages whose inhabitants were mainly subsistence fishermen and farmers, maintain that amount is closer to 600,000 barrels, one of the villagers' lawyers told msnbc.com.

100 miles of oil: Spill likely Nigeria's worst in decade

"We have urged them to have their expert work with our expert," said Martyn Day of law firm Leigh Day & Co. "But (Shell has) totally refused."

Day said that negotiations broke down last week.

'No need for the legal activity'
Shell spokesman Jonathan French told msnbc.com that the firm cannot discuss details of the legal process, but said the company was dismayed that the case was going to court.

"There really has been no need for the legal activity which has delayed the the payout and cleanup," he said. "We accepted responsibility at the earliest point we could ... there was no need for this firm of London solicitors to take action."

PhotoBlog: Nigerian oil industry photos reveal extremes of poverty, wealth

"Nobody is saying is that there isn’t a problem with oil spills in the Niger Delta," French added. "The point is that there is this formula enshrined in Nigerian law that spells out level of compensation."

Instead of resorting to court, the villagers should have followed the process already in place in Nigeria, French said, adding that the involvement of law firms such as Leigh Day "can serve to delay compensation."

$1 billion cleanup tab in Nigeria oil mess, UN says

Shell paid out $4 million in compensation to victims of operational oil spills in 2009, and $1.7 million in 2010, French said.

Shell has been criticized for its behavior in Nigeria before.

In Aug. 2011, the United Nations released a report saying the company and the Nigerian government had contributed to 50 years of pollution in the Niger Delta that could need the world's largest ever oil cleanup. The work would take up to 30 years and require an initial tab estimated at $1 billion, the report said.

On February 17, Amnesty International issued a report saying that:

"Shell's failures persist despite significant evidence based calls on the company to make meaningful changes in the way it operates in the Niger Delta. In 2011 the evidence confronting Shell was confirmed in a ground-breaking study by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that looked at the impact of oil pollution in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta. The UNEP report confirmed that serious environmental damage had occurred in Ogoniland, one area of the Niger Delta, over many years. It found systemic failures in Shell’s approach to cleaning up pollution and rehabilitating land, which have exposed tens of thousands of people to a sustained assault on their economic, social and cultural rights."

 

Seventeen executives from Chevron and Transocean have been barred from leaving Brazil pending criminal charges related to a high-profile oil spill last November.

A federal judge in Rio de Janeiro state granted a request from prosecutors who are pressing for charges against both firms, a spokesman for prosecutor Eduardo Oliveira said in a phone interview. George Buck, who heads Chevron's Brazil unit, and the other 16 executives must turn in their passports to the police within 24 hours, the spokesman said.

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Charges are expected to be filed on Tuesday or Wednesday, according to the prosecutors' press office.

The court decision came a day after the Brazilian navy spotted a thin stain of oil extending for about 0.6 mile (1 km) in offshore field Frade, which was also the site of last year's spill. U.S.-based Chevron said in a statement it halted production at Frade on Saturday after winning permission from Brazilian oil industry regulator ANP.

Neither Chevron nor any of its executives "have been formally notified of any action by the judiciary yet," the company statement said. "Any legal decision will be abided by the company and its employees. We will defend the company and its employees."

Prosecutors want to press a criminal indictment of Buck and other executives from Chevron and Swiss-based offshore drilling company Transocean, three government sources told Reuters in January. Transocean's rig was used in the Frade field.

It is up to a judge to determine whether to accept the charges and proceed with indictments.

Chevron's spill in November leaked as many as 3,000 barrels from sea-floor cracks. It resulted in an $11 billion civil lawsuit, the largest environmental damages case in Brazil's history, although the total amount of oil was less than 0.1 percent of the BP spill in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico.

Chevron's troubles in Brazil could force it to rethink Latin American strategies. A shortage of trained workers, engineers and equipment has driven up costs in Brazil, and Chevron faces an $18 billion environmental verdict in Ecuador.

Chevron is stopping production plans to better assess its "reservoir management plans" in Brazil, where it has spent over $2 billion developing the largest foreign-run oil field. The suspension will shut down a field with the capacity to produce 80,000 barrels a day, more than 3 percent of Brazil's oil output.

Chevron, which made public on Thursday the request to suspend output at Frade, said the plan was supported by its partners in the field: Brazilian state oil company Petrobras and Frade Japan, which is owned by Japan's Inpex , Japanese trading house Sojitz and Japanese state oil and metals group JOGMEC.

Chevron owns 52 percent of Frade and operates the field. Petrobras owns 30 percent and Frade Japan, 18 percent.

"The decision to request the temporary shut-in of production is a precautionary measure," Chevron said in the statement. "The company will conduct a comprehensive technical study and prepare a complementary study to better understand the geological features of the area, working with partners."

Navy staff found the stain on Friday after flying over the area off Brazil's Atlantic coast, according to a statement late on Friday. The navy, the ANP and environmental protection agency Ibama will monitor and coordinate actions with Chevron to control the stain, the statement added.

Most of the oil coming from the leak is being captured by specially built containment devices, Chevron said, adding additional devices would be installed as needed.

Chevron said on Thursday there was no evidence that the new leak and the one in November were related.

Natural oil leaks in the Campos Basin, home to the Frade field, are common, Cleveland Jones, a geologist at UFRJ, the state university of Rio de Janeiro, said in an interview.

"Until there is some proof, there is a good chance that this leak is a natural occurrence, not something to do with Chevron," he said. "Leaks of this size are common, and are how people realized there was oil in the area in the first place."'

ANP, Brazil's navy and Ibama officials will meet early next week to assess the situation.

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