Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Revisited after Twenty-five Years

Case Studies | Case Study in Business, Management, Operations, Strategy, Case Study

ICMR HOME | Case Studies Collection

Case Details:

Case Code : BECG115
Case Length : 34 Pages
Period : 1984-2010
Organization : Union Carbide Corporation / Dow Chemicals Company
Pub Date : 2010
Teaching Note : Available
Countries : India
Industry : Chemicals

To download Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Revisited after Twenty-five Years case study (Case Code: BECG115) click on the button below, and select the case from the list of available cases:

Price:

For delivery in electronic format: Rs. 500 ;
For delivery through courier (within India): Rs. 500 + Rs. 25 for Shipping & Handling Charges

»Business Ethics Case Studies
» Case Studies Collection
» ICMR Home
» View Detailed Pricing Info
» How To Order This Case
» Business Case Studies
» Case Studies by Area
» Case Studies by Industry
» Case Studies by Company

Please note:

This case study was compiled from published sources, and is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion. It is not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. Nor is it a primary information source.

<< Previous

"Twenty-five years is a long time to wait for Dow and Union Carbide to right this devastating wrong, and it's even longer when the tragedy keeps on giving. Because site contamination has still not been adequately contained, nor cleaned up, the poisons continue to pollute the groundwater that more than 30,000 people rely on for drinking water. Again, how is it that a corporation gets away with this?" ¹

- Tonya Hennessey, Project Director, CorpWatch², in December 2009.

"Bhopal is not just an incident of industrial disaster and human suffering from the last century. It is very much an issue of the present century of corporate accountability, peoples' rights, and government responsibility. The lack of mandatory laws and norms governing multinationals, legal complexities, and government failures are serious obstacles in ensuring justice for the people of Bhopal, and for the victims of corporate complicity in crimes against environment, peoples' lives, and safety." ³

- Amnesty International⁴, in November 2009.

25 Years on... New Victims are Born Everyday

December 3, 2009, marked the 25th anniversary of the world's worst-ever industrial disaster - the deadly gas leak at the Bhopal⁵-based pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL).

Tragedy struck on December 3, 1984, after water entered the Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) storage tank No. 610 at the plant. MIC is one of the deadliest gases produced in the chemical industry and is known to react violently when it comes into contact with water or metal dust.

Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Revisited after Twenty-five Years - Next Page>>

1] Tonya Hennessey, "25 Years and Still Fighting for Justice: When Will Dow Chemical Clean Up its Poisonous Legacy in Bhopal," www.corpwatch.org, December 14, 2009.
2] CorpWatch is a non-profit investigative research and journalism formed with the stated aim "to expose corporate malfeasance and to advocate for multinational corporate accountability and transparency".
3] "Disaster, Corporate Responsibility and Peoples' Rights," http://kafila.org, November 30, 2009.
4] Amnesty International, founded in London in 1961, is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) formed with the stated mission "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."
5] Bhopal is the capital of the central Indian state, Madhya Pradesh.

Business Ethics and Corporate Governance Textbook
Textbooks Collection

Business Ethics and Corporate Governance Workbook
Workbooks Collection

Case Studies in Business Ethics - Vol. I

Case Study Volumes Collection