Corporate Responsibility and the Bophal Tragedy
Corporate responsibility is a company's initiatives to assess and take responsibility for its impacts on environmental and social wellbeing. More often than not, multinational companies are ignorant of their environmental and social impacts in developing countries, which is at the expense of the needy, poor or disadvantaged. This paper focuses on the Union Carbide Company, highlighting the Bophal tragedy, the aftermath and what needs to be done to curb corporate negligence.
The Bophal Tragedy
Union Carbide was an American based corporation which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemicals since 2001. Bophal tragedy has been called the worst tragedy in history, in December 1984, a Union Carbide India Limited pesticides plant in Bophal experienced a leak of over forty tons of a poisonous gas into the surrounding environment (Union Carbide/Dow Lawsuit).
The Impact on the Community
The plant was situated in a densely populated area where people had set up informal settlements. It is estimated that the gas leak caused more than three thousand immediate deaths, about fifteen thousand consecutive deaths, and more than fifty thousand people were permanently disabled.
Lack of Safety Systems and Training
In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) controls and regulates chemical industries such as the Union Carbide. It does a risk assessment of chemicals, inspects safety measures such as emergency procedures and employees' capability of handling accidents, community rights and pollution regulations (epa.gov). Years before the tragic accident, two workers had died due to an accident and later on, twenty-five were hospitalized due to a leak in 1982 (Merc). After the tragedy, it was discovered that all the safety systems were faulty; the red gas scrubbers, the flayer tower to deactivate the gas and the last result of transferring the contents to another tank could not function properly. In addition to that, there was no single night shift employee at the time that was professionally trained to handle such a disaster (Merc).
Legal Battles and Reparations
Some of the Bophal injured victims tried to fight for justice against the Union Carbide company. From the US, lawsuits were dismissed and it was said that the Indian government would decide on all the litigations. Five years later, in 1989, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that a settlement of 470 million dollars be paid as reparations to the bereaved families and the injured people (Union Carbide/Dow Lawsuit). Until a couple of years ago, only 330 million had been paid to the victims, more than fifteen plus years after the tragedy. Moreover, there has never been a clear explanation of what caused the leak and the stakeholders still contend on who should take the responsibility of cleanup.
Efforts for Reparation and Ongoing Pollution
In 2010, efforts to reopen the settlement were cut short since any further settlements were barred in the agreement of the first settlement. These efforts came as a result of poor identification of victims in the initial settlement. In 1999, a group of victims filed a lawsuit in the US federal court seeking for reparation or compensation of the 1984 incident as well as for the ongoing groundwater and air pollution in the area (Union Carbide/Dow Lawsuit). The case was thrown out as Union Carbide would not be sued for any further settlements, despite them producing concrete evidence of the ongoing pollution.
The Long-Term Effects
The effects of multinational corporate negligence are usually detrimental to the hard-hit people who are often the poor and vulnerable in society. Most effects continue to be felt generations after the incident. In the case of Bophal, the victims continue to experience these long-term effects in their children. Many are born with congenital birth defects due to mutations and mental retardation (Merc). Moreover, cancer and developmental problems are continuously on the rise. This is a prime example of what happens in third world countries where the know-how of putting up policies for regulating such ignorance is truant.
Ensuring Corporate Accountability
It becomes easy for a company to assume that the community does not care or recognize their pervasive ways of dumping waste and polluting the environment when in the real sense, they are suffering in silence. Every company should be fully aware of their social and environmental responsibility for a sustainable future (eoa.gov). Host governments should collaborate with the mother countries of these corporations to ensure that the international guidelines and policies are followed. This will ensure accountability, transparency and see a reduction in incidences caused by negligence as well as denied justice when such incidences occur.
Disaster Management and Employee Training
Every Corporation should be effectively monitored in disaster management strategies, that they should be ISO certified and the employees are well aware of emergency drills. The community should also be sensitized on their rights to a safe environment and working conditions. This could help curb disasters long before they occur. Generally, positive impacts and the integration of social and environmental initiatives in the companies' frameworks is the key to achieving environmental sustainability (Schönherr et al. 35).
Conclusion
Companies in the US undergo stringent regulations and routine inspections to ensure that safety policies are well implemented. Looking at the magnitude of the Bophal disaster, it is clear that no safety measures were put in place and that the employees were unaware of how to handle emergencies. If routine inspection and monitoring were done by the relevant authorities, the chance of such a catastrophe would have been lower.
Works Cited
"About The Office Of Chemical Safety And Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) | US EPA". US EPA, 2018, https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/about-office-chemical-safety-and-pollution-prevention-ocspp#oppt. Accessed 18 June 2018.
"Union Carbide/Dow Lawsuit (Re Bhopal) | Business " Human Rights Resource Centre". Business-Humanrights.Org, 2018, https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/union-carbidedow-lawsuit-re-bhopal. Accessed 16 June 2018.
Merc. "Bhopal Gas Tragedy | World's Worst Industrial Disaster". Youtube, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdyBy2s9I5c. Accessed 16 June 2018.
Schönherr, Norma et al. "Exploring The Interface Of CSR And The Sustainable Development Goals". Unctad.Org, 2017, http://unctad.org/en/PublicationChapters/diaeia2017d4a3_en.pdf. Accessed 16 June 2018.
