Bhopal

In one line

On the night of 2 and 3 December 1984 a chemical plant in Bhopal released a cloud of methyl isocyanate over a sleeping city, and Indian law had nothing adequate to meet it.

In exam wording: the Bhopal gas leak of the night of 2 to 3 December 1984, at the pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited, a subsidiary of the Union Carbide Corporation of the United States, released methyl isocyanate over the surrounding population, killing thousands and injuring very many more; the legal response comprised the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act 1985, litigation in the United States which was dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds, a suit in the District Court at Bhopal, a settlement recorded by the Supreme Court in February 1989 at 470 million United States dollars, and the review decisions in Charan Lal Sahu v. Union of India and Union Carbide Corporation v. Union of India.

What happened

The plant manufactured a pesticide, and methyl isocyanate was an intermediate held in bulk storage. Water entered a storage tank, a runaway exothermic reaction followed, and the gas was released. It is heavier than air, so it moved along the ground through densely populated settlements immediately adjacent to the plant.

Three features made it the worst industrial accident on record, and each is legally relevant.

The population was at the fence. Settlements had grown up against the plant boundary, which is a land use and planning failure as much as an industrial one.

Nobody knew what to do. The gas was not one whose medical management was widely known, and the treating doctors had no protocol. That is an information failure, and it is the reason the Rotterdam Convention's export information requirements and the Aarhus Convention's dissemination obligation on an imminent threat matter.

The intermediate was stored in bulk. The alternative process design produces the intermediate and consumes it immediately, holding almost none. The decision to store it is where the hazard was created, and it is the practical meaning of containment in MU's printed topic.

The legal problem, stated as it appeared in 1985

Who was liable? The Indian company operated the plant. The American parent held a majority of its shares, had designed the process and had provided technical services.

Under what rule? Indian tort law in 1984 offered negligence, and Rylands v. Fletcher with its exceptions. Neither was adequate against a defendant with better information than any claimant could obtain.

Who would sue? Tens of thousands of claimants, most of them poor, most without documents, many dead, against a corporation with the resources to litigate for a generation.

Where? In India, where the courts were slow and the damages awards small; or in the United States, where the awards were large and the defendant was resident.