By law, certain documents related to court cases are publicly available for download. You can visit the Public Access to Electronic Court Records (PACER) database and see the case ‘docket’ which will contain many hyperlinked documents. Much of it is simply listed by exhibit number and it may be difficult to understand where different kinds of documentary evidence or depositions are filed. However, an abundance of previously hidden evidence relating to Shell’s role in the abuses committed against the Ogoni people can be uncovered with a bit of patience. Here’s how to access the information:

1. Register with the PACER database here: http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/
Note: you will have to provide a credit card as document downloads cost $.08 per page.

2. Visit the website for the New York District Court: https://ecf.nysd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl

3. Login using your PACER username & password, (you don’t need a ‘client code’).

4. To see the complete docket with all the available documents, as well as ‘minute reports’ from pre-trial hearings and conferences, click on ‘Docket Sheet’ (you should see a link, but it’s also under ‘Reports’ in the toolbar at the top).

5. Put in the Wiwa v. Shell case number including the hyphen: 96-8386, and click the button next to the field called ‘find this case’. Choose ‘Sort by’ Newest date first and make sure you’ve ticked ‘Include Headers when displaying PDF documents’ under ‘Document options.’ Leave ‘Format’ as ‘html’

6. The list of all court motions and filings will appear.

7. Once you are set up on PACER, you can download these at the cost of 8 cents per page. The files are downloaded as ‘.pl’ files– you will need to manually change the extension to ‘.pdf’ in order to open them.