“For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing” (Isa 61:8).
This is the last of a six part series that considers the issue of prophecy and human justice in light of a recently-opened court case in Stockholm against the leadership of oil company Lundin for complicity in war crimes. Read Parts One, Two, Three, Four, and Five here. This final article looks at what God might still require in order to complete His vision for human justice for the Sudanese victims of the oil war in Lundin’s concession if the oil executives and company are found guilty.
Justice in the Bible
God obviously loves justice, as it is the foundation of His throne (Deut. 32:4); yet few are aware that justice is one of the only things the Lord states His affection for. In her book God loves Justice, Jessica Nicholas points out that the Old Testament contains just 37 references to God’s stated love for something. Of these, 29 mention His love for things to do with His chosen people and land, Israel, while the remaining eight mentions are only for righteousness and justice (Ps 33:5; 37:28; 99:4 and Isa 61:8; see also Jer 9:24). For this reason, we should take special note of God’s commands in the Bible for us to establish human justice in our societies, as it is clearly very important to our Lord. And we must ensure it is done correctly, which means following the guidelines set out in Scripture.
We should take special note of God’s commands in the Bible for us to establish human justice in our societies, as it is clearly very important to our Lord.
The Exodus story provides the key example of how God executes temporal justice on behalf of the oppressed: He released the Israelites from slavery (Ex 12:31-32), and prompted their Egyptian oppressors to compensate them with abundant silver, gold and clothing (Ex 12:35-36); He prevented the Israelites being re-captured when He destroyed Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea (Ex 14:27-28); and He punished the Egyptians by sending the Angel of Death to kill at least one person in every family (Ex 12:28-29). We thus see here the application of different aspects of justice — liberation, restitution, prevention, and temporal/earthly punishment. The first two come under the concept of distributive or social justice, while the latter two are considered forms of corrective or criminal justice.
Criminal justice
Modern human governments seek to establish criminal justice in society, which we will witness in the ongoing court case against Lundin in Stockholm. If found guilty, the two accused executives will be punished with life-long imprisonment that will rob them of their liberty, thus denying them the luxurious lifestyles they have hitherto enjoyed, and isolating them from family and friends. Once in prison, they will be unable to continue their jobs, so preventing them from conducting other illegal business ventures. This will protect potential victims from harm, and the example of Lundin’s fate will hopefully deter other businessmen from undertaking similar projects. Further punishment and deterrence will be achieved by fining Lundin Oil/Petroleum’s legal successor, Orrön Energy AB, some 2.3 billion Swedish crowns, i.e. about 200 million pounds, which will go into Sweden’s state coffers.
Distributive justice?
But what will the 160,000 victims of Lundin’s oil misadventure in Sudan get out of the court case in Stockholm? Swedish law does not allow for collective — i.e. so-called ‘class action’ — claims on behalf of a wronged crowd, while individual claims by the 32 plaintiffs who are witnesses in the war crimes trial were refused consideration by a court on the 22nd November 2023. The victims will appeal this decision, but if this is rejected, then each victim will have to pay their own legal fees to pursue compensation through a civil trial after paying a 45,000 euro deposit to cover their opponents fees if their claims fail — which means they would likely not proceed.
Therefore, all that the Sudanese victims are likely to receive from the current court case is a public acknowledgement of their suffering, and the recognition — if its top executives are convicted – that Lundin acted wrongly. But they will not get any restitution for the considerable loss of their homes and livelihoods. Criminal justice on its own is thus an incomplete justice, for distributive/social justice must also be applied.
Failed attempts
The first prophetic voices against the oil companies in Sudan from 1995 tried to achieve social justice by calling for a stop to their activities, to liberate civilians from the suffering caused by the oil war. In 1999, the Sudan Ecumenical Forum asked its Western counterparts to promote the message of ‘Peace First, Oil Second’, while the Talisman divestment campaign sought the same result through shareholder action. But these attempts failed, as the oil companies sold their stakes at profit to non-Western oil companies from Malaysia, India and China that were immune to civil-society pressure. Oil exploration and extraction thus continued in the war zone of South Sudan, and continued to fuel the ongoing fighting.
Criminal justice on its own is thus an incomplete justice, for distributive/social justice must also be applied.
That war ended in January 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Nairobi. The civilians from the oil field areas were thus freed from the oppression of war, but their lives were still destroyed. In addition to having lost family members who were directly or indirectly killed by the conflict and its consequences, they had lost some 500,000 cattle, 40,000 homes, plus goats, food stocks, tools, etc. They were utterly destitute, living on the brink of starvation in miserable camps where they were subjected to ongoing violence. All of which was partly caused by a Swedish business that was largely funded by Swedish banks, pension and insurance companies in their unbridled greed to make fast money.
In their report Unpaid Debt that triggered the current court case in Stockholm, the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) presented a $300 million (USD) compensation claim for the Sudanese victims, based on the replacement price of every stolen cow and destroyed home. Their actual calculation had arrived at a figure of $700 million, but was massively reduced to ensure it could not be contested. It is shocking to note that the calculated $700 million total loss is more than seven times greater than the $93 million earned by Lundin in profit from its miserable oil venture.
Torah high standards
The Bible, however, demands much more than simple replacement when we apply its standards from the contextual viewpoint of a nomadic society to whom the Torah laws were originally written. Here, a stolen cow — symbolic of the means of wealth generation — should be restored fivefold (Ex 22:1), while other stolen property receives double compensation (Ex 22:9). By this reckoning, the Sudanese victims should receive $3 billion in reparations. This amount excludes compensation for the deaths of relatives, because Scripture considers free human life to be priceless, which contrasts with Viking and Sharia law that permit the payment of wergeld or a man-price that effectively turns murdered victims into dead slaves.
A debt, and an opportunity
I believe Lundin is liable for half of my calculated $3 billion compensation — i.e. $1.5 billion — as the losses were suffered as a result of a pact between the oil company and the Sudanese Government, whose armed forces and allied militias stole cattle and burned homes while wresting the oilfield from rebel control. This was done to allow Lundin to develop their licence area, which it then sold at a huge profit that benefitted its Swedish shareholders. As many of them are major Swedish banks, pension and insurance companies, it effectively means the whole country, i.e. every Swedish citizen, received a wealth injection of Sudanese blood money.
A prophetic Church that calls for justice might thereby reverse its decline.
This reality places an onerous burden on Sweden’s Christians to rectify this wrong. The task before them is huge, but they should take encouragement from the current court case against Lundin that was instigated by Christians from other countries — Sudan, Canada, Germany, Holland, Denmark, the US and the UK. Their successful effort demonstrates what God’s servants will achieve when they obey His commands (see part 4 of this article series). That result stands in stark contrast to the earlier failure of Sweden’s Christians, civil society and government to act when they were repeatedly informed by NGOs and the media during 1999-2003 about what was happening in Lundin’s oilfield. Instead of trying to end the atrocities, they chose to be passive and silent. God must surely be angry with them for that — an anger they should fear and not ignore.
God loves justice, and commands us to enact it. We should therefore apply it out of obedience to the Lord, compassion for the victims of injustice, love of justice itself, and fear of God’s anger at our inaction. Sweden’s Christians also need to atone for the blood money they have collectively acquired as Swedes, and for their past failure to stop Lundin’s abuse of Sudanese civilians. This burden is however also an opportunity in a country with the lowest church attendance in the Western world — by demanding Sweden to compensate its Sudanese victims, they will show fellow Swedes that Christianity is about more than a few people gathering in ancient buildings, but is instead a relevant force for good in our global society. A prophetic Church that calls for justice might thereby reverse its decline.
For weekly updates on the progress of the Lundin court case in Stockholm that will continue until March 2026, go to https://crd.org/tag/trial-reports-lundin/
Phil Clarke is a former aid worker and executive director of the Danish branch of Médecins Sans Frontières, and is currently the director of the independent war crimes investigation agency Bloodhound that he co-founded in 2006. He has been closely involved with efforts to bring Lundin to justice since 2001, and produced the report Justifying Blood Money in 2013 to expose Lundin’s lies to shareholders while it explored for oil in Sudan. His debut novel Falling Night was published in 2023, based on the experiences that led him from humanitarian aid to documenting war crimes.