Bhopal and Corporate Crime

It is only a matter of time before the world is shocked and sickened by another Bhopal-type industrial disaster. This is because the global economic forces that led Union Carbide to build and operate its ill-fated factory in Bhopal have not gone away - they have only become stronger. The fact that after 20 years of the Bhopal disaster, survivors are forced to drink poisoned water, contaminated by stockpiles of abandoned chemicals, clearly reflects the apathy of Corporations and Governments towards communities and the environment.

The lessons of Bhopal are still waiting to be learned. In fact, a 1000 Bhopals are happening in slow motion across India - destroying the environment and poisoning people with impunity. Environmental disasters, both chronic and immediate, induced by irresponsible corporate practices are becoming more frequent. Transnational corporations have learned to downplay damage, and focus attention and liability on the local company to elude full criminal and civil liability.

To curb these abuses, governments must act on a global basis to ensure that both transnational and national corporations are held liable for their actions, particularly in countries like ours where companies operate in less regulated environments.

Not all companies operating in both the developing and developed world fit this description. But many certainly do. Some routinely fail to respond in an adequate manner to incidents, fail to compensate and assist impacted communities, fail to meet their obligations to clean up damaged environments and violate the rights of workers and local residents by not monitoring or disclosing essential information concerning their products and processes.

Bhopal is an icon for the need to change the way corporations operate globally in rich and poor nations. Their safety measures designed to prevent a gas leak had either malfunctioned or were otherwise inadequate; the safety siren intended to alert the community should an accident occur was turned off. This is particularly irresponsible in light of the fact that storage of the chemical being manufactured - methyl isocyanate (MIC) - is known to be extremely dangerous. In the aftermath of the disaster, Union Carbide refused to provide full information regarding the nature of the poisoning which meant that doctors were unable to properly treat those exposed. Such behavior is no less than criminal, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to seek justice and to hold these companies accountable and liable for their crimes.

Union Carbide managed to escape its obligations for the Bhopal disaster by deflecting responsibility on to the Indian government. It constantly downplayed the damage to the people and environment of Bhopal to limit its liability, demonstrating its utter moral bankruptcy in the process. Finally, the company simply fled from India, abandoning the factory and fobbing off the devastated population with a paltry 'final' settlement of just US$370-533 per person.

In 2001, Union Carbide shed its name by merging with the multinational Dow Chemical for US$9.3 billion. This made Dow the largest chemical company in the world. Yet despite buying Union Carbide's assets - and its liabilities - Dow has refused to accept moral responsibility for the actions of Union Carbide in Bhopal, or even to be accountable for the actions of the company it took over.

Dow refuses to accept responsibility for the on-going health problems in Bhopal. Nor has it attempted to deal with the large stockpiles of dangerous poisons left behind by Union Carbide or the toxic legacy that is still ruining people's lives. Yet it nevertheless claims that it has "done what it needs to do to pursue the correct environment, health and safety programs."

This incredible claim clearly reflects the double standards that many corporations operate under. For example, Former Attorney to the US Senate, Curtis Moore, stated: "A Bhopal type event in the United States… would have been cleaned up by now, no question about it. If the company didn't want to clean it up then the government would have done it, and given the bill for three times the cost of clean-up to the company. Every corporate executive in the USA knows that those are the sorts of liability that are attached to releasing chemical poisons."

The ongoing Bhopal disaster shows how important it is that corporations across all industrial sectors guarantee paramount safety standards wherever they operate in the world. Greenpeace - which has been working with Bhopal survivor groups is campaigning to ensure that corporations are held liable for their actions, for both compensation to victims of pollution and for environmental clean-up. We believe that all human beings around the world have the right to live in a clean, safe and healthy environment.