From the moment he first laid eyes on it, Steven Donziger knew he had to do something about the oil. It was 1993, and the newly graduated human rights lawyer was in Ecuador investigating allegations that Texaco had dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon rainforest.

“I expected to see pollution, but I was shocked at the level of it,” he remembers now. “It was just blatantly out there on the floor of the jungle. Olympic swimming pool-sized lakes of oil that had been placed there deliberately by Texaco, then left and abandoned. They were leaching into the soil. There were pipes draining into the streams and rivers that people were drinking out of. It was obvious it was an apocalyptic nightmare.”

That moment lit a fire in Donziger that still burns to this day, 30 years on. Beneath swaying palm trees in a hotel bar in Santa Monica, the 62-year-old is speaking passionately about the case that consumed his life. At 6ft 4in, with close-cropped grey-white hair, he cuts a commanding but good-humoured figure, especially considering that until a few months ago an ankle tag had kept him confined to his Manhattan apartment for 993 days.

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