Union Carbide and James Hardie: Lessons in politics and power

Global Society

Volumn 20, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 475-490

  Engel, Susan ^a   Martin, Brian ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DISASTER; GLOBALIZATION; INDUSTRIAL REGULATION; SOCIAL JUSTICE;

ASIA; AUSTRALASIA; AUSTRALIA; BHOPAL; EURASIA; INDIA; MADHYA PRADESH; SOUTH ASIA;

EID: 33750495172     PISSN: 13600826     EISSN: 1469798X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13600820600929838     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973), pp. 657-703.
2. Brian Martin, "The Beating of Rodney King: The Dynamics of Backfire", Critical Criminology, Vol. 13 (2005), pp. 307-326.
3. Brian Martin and Steve Wright, "Countershock: Mobilizing Resistance to Electroshock Weapons", Medicine, Conflict and Survival, Vol. 19, No. 3 (2003), pp. 205-222.
4. Sue Curry Jansen and Brian Martin, "Making Censorship Backfire", Counterpoise, Vol. 7, No. 3 (2003), pp. 5-15;
5. Sue Curry Jansen and Brian Martin, "Exposing and Opposing Censorship: Backfire Dynamics in Freedom-of-speech Struggles", Pacific Journalism Review, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2004), pp. 29-45.
6. Brian Martin, Justice Ignited: The Dynamics of Backfire (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, in press). There are some parallels between our codification and the work of Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), see esp. ch. 1.
7. Stanton A. Glantz, John Slade, Lisa A. Bero, Peter Hanauer and Deborah E. Barnes, The Cigarette Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
8. Ben Hills, Blue Murder (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 41-44.
9. For a detailed account of the psychology of cover-up see Cohen, op. cit., ch. 4.
10. The case for corporate openness is a natural outcome of the case for employee rights as given by David W. Ewing, Freedom inside the Organization: Bringing Civil Liberties to the Workplace (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1977).
11. Robert Jackall, Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
12. See Harvey Molotch and Marilyn Lester, "News as Purposive Behaviour: On the Strategic Use of Routine Events, Accidents, and Scandals", in Stanley Cohen and Jock Young (eds.), The Manufacture of News: Social Problems, Deviance and the Mass Media (London: Constable, 1973), pp. 118-137.
13. Cited in Amnesty International, Clouds of Injustice: Bhopal Disaster 20 Years on (London: Amnesty International Publications, 2004), p. 50. The claim also contradicts UCC officials' testimony before the US Congress regarding methyl isocyanate; ibid., pp. 52-53.
14. Upendra Baxi, "The 'Just War' for Profit and Power: The Bhopal Catastrophe and the Principle of Double Effect", in Lene Bomann-Larsen and Oddny Wiggen (eds.), Responsibility in World Business: Managing Harmful Side-effects of Corporate Activity (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2004), pp. 175-201 (p. 180).
15. During the court case in India UCC also continued to deny the toxicity of MIC: See Upendra Baxi and Amita Dhanda, Valiant Victims and Lethal Litigation: The Bhopal Case (Bombay: N.M. Tripathi, 1990), pp. xvi-xvii.
16. Union Carbide Corporation, Bhopal Information Center, "Chronology", available: (accessed September 20, 2006).
17. See Tim Edwards, "How Many Died in Bhopal?", available: (accessed September 20, 2006); Amnesty International, op. cit., pp. 10-17.
18. Jock McCulloch, Asbestos: Its Human Cost (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1986), p. 210.
19. Ibid., p. 171.
20. Gideon Haigh, Asbestos House: The Secret History of James Hardie Industries (Melbourne: Scribe, 2006), p. 121.
21. Hills, op. cit., p. 183.
22. Melvin J. Lerner, The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion (New York: Plenum, 1980).
23. Baxi, op. cit., pp. 186-189. See also "Updates: Bhopal Disaster", World Watch, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2003), p. 9;
24. H. Rajan Sharma, "Slow Motion in Bhopal", The Nation, Vol. 278, No. 25 (28 June 2004), p. 2;
25. Kim Fortun, Advocacy after Bhopal: Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), pp. 116-117.
26. Baxi, op. cit., p. 189.
27. International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, available: (accessed September 20, 2006).
28. Cited in Amnesty International, op. cit., p. 51.
29. "Averting a Bhopal Legal Disaster", Wall Street Journal (16 May 1985),
30. cited in Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro, Five Past Midnight in Bhopal (trans. K. Spink) (New York: Warner Books, 2002), p. 380.
31. On the case for the act, see James Cassels, The Uncertain Promise of Law: Lessons from Bhopal (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), p. 118.
32. Ibid., p. 230.
33. Baxi and Dhanda, op. cit., p. iii; Fortun, op. cit., p. 146.
34. McCulloch, op. cit., pp. 184-186.
35. Ibid., p. 150.
36. On this theme see Cohen, op. cit., pp. 101-116.
37. Union Carbide Corporation, Bhopal Information Center, available: .
38. Fortun, op. cit., p. 102;
39. Lapierre and Moro, op. cit., pp. 381-382.
40. Union Carbide Corporation, "Statement of Union Carbide Corporation Regarding the Bhopal Tragedy", available: . (accessed September 20, 2006).
41. This is from a study by Ashok S. Kalelkar from the firm Arthur D. Little, which claims to be an independent investigation but includes a footnote that Kalelkar/Little were part of the UCC study. Arthur D. Little was later engaged to advise UCC in the (non-existent) environmental clean-up.
42. Ashok S. Kalelkar, "Investigation of Large-magnitude Incidents: Bhopal as a Case Study", Presented at the Institution of Chemical Engineers Conference on Preventing Major Chemical Accidents, London, May 1988, available: . (accessed September 20, 2006), p. 10.
43. Fortun, op. cit., p. 102,
44. Lapierre and Moro, op. cit., p. 382.
45. Cited in Students for Bhopal, "What Happened", available: . (accessed September 20, 2006).
46. Jackson Browning, Vice President of UCC, cited in Fortun, op. cit., p. 98.
47. The statement is reprinted in Fortun, op. cit., pp. 98-101
48. On the development and disbursement of medical evidence see, for example: David Gee and Morris Greenberg, "Asbestos: From 'Magic' to Malevolent Mineral", in P. Harremos̈, D. Gee, M. MacGarvin, A. Stirling, J. Keys, B. Wynne and S. Guedes Vaz (eds.) pp. 52-63, The Precautionary Principle in the 20th Century: Late Lessons from Early Warnings (London: Earthscan, 2002);
49. McCulloch, op. cit., pp. 36-69;
50. National Industrial Chemicals Notification Assessment Scheme, Chrysotile Asbestos Priority Existing Chemical No. 9: Full Public Report (Commonwealth of Australia, 1999), pp. 57-72.
51. Geoffrey Tweedle and Jock McCulloch, "Chrysophiles versus Chrysophobes: The White Asbestos Controversy", Isis, Vol. 94, No. 2 (2004), pp. 239-260.
52. Cited in McCulloch, op. cit., p. 21.
53. William De Maria, Deadly Disclosures: Whistleblowing and the Ethical Meltdown of Australia (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1999).
54. Thane Rosenbaum, The Myth of Moral Justice (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).
55. Baxi and Dhanda, op. cit., p. v.
56. Cohen, op. cit., p. 79.
57. For a useful discussion of the attributes of a corporation and recent attempts to reform corporate law in particular liability aspects, see Harry Glasbeek, Wealth by Stealth: Corporate Crime, Corporate Law, and the Perversion of Democracy (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002), pp. 1-5.
58. Cassels, op. cit., p. 144.
59. Ibid., pp. 134-135.
60. Baxi and Dhanda, op. cit., pp. xiv, 61-62.
61. See also Upendra Baxi, Inconvenient Forum and Convenient Catastrophe: The Bhopal Case (Bombay: N.M. Tripathi, 1986);
62. Upendra Baxi and Thomas Paul, Mass Disasters and Multinational Liability: The Bhopal Case (Bombay: N.M. Tripathi, 1986).
63. Baxi and Dhanda, op. cit., pp. xxxv-xxxvii.
64. Ibid., p. 162.
65. Amnesty International, op. cit., p. 59.
66. Ibid., p. 66.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid., p. 55.
69. World Socialist Web site, "Indian Court Refuses to Reduce Homicide Charges over Bhopal Disaster", available: . (accessed September 20, 2006).
70. "Bhopal Gas Disaster Fugitive 'Found'", BBC News World Edition (30 August 2002).
71. See International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, op. cit.
72. McCulloch, op. cit., p. 143.
73. George Wragg, The Asbestos Time Bomb (Sydney: Catalyst Press, 1995), p. 27.
74. McCulloch, op. cit., pp. 95-96, 149-150.
75. Ibid., p. 183.
76. On both the level of underfunding of the MCRF and Hardie misleading the public regarding the capacity of the MCRF to meet asbestos liabilities, see D.F. Jackson QC, Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation (September 2004), available: . (accessed September 20, 2006), pp. 7-30.
77. See also Haigh, op. cit.
78. A fact acknowledged in the Jackson Report, op. cit., p. 19. US companies had also transferred asbestos production to developing countries with less stringent or no safety and environmental standards: Raymond J. Michalowski and Ronald C. Kramer, "The Space between Laws: The Problem of Corporate Crime in a Transnational Context", Social Problems, Vol. 34, No. 1 (1987), pp. 34-53.
79. On the difficulties of pursing action against Hardie, see Peter Prince, Jerome Davidson and Susan Dudley, "In the Shadow of the Corporate Veil: James Hardie and Asbestos Compensation", Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library, Research Note No. 12 (10 August 2004), available: . (accessed September 20, 2006).
80. Amisha Patel and Robina Xavier, "Legitimacy Challenged: James Hardie Industries and the Asbestos Case", Australian Journal of Communication, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2005), pp. 53-69.
81. Bruce Cowley, "Can Directors be Personally Liable for Being too Generous in Compensating Victims?", Keeping Good Companies, Vol. 57, No. 1 (2005), pp. 36-37.
82. George W. Pring and Penelope Canan, SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996).
83. World Socialist Web site, op. cit.
84. Fortun, op. cit., p. 42.
85. Ibid., p. 102.
86. Ibid.
87. Victoria Laurie, "The Club that Refuses to Die", TheWeekend Australian Magazine (5-6 February 2005), pp. 18-20 (p. 20).
88. Kim Haines, Thomas John and Malcolm Park, "Workplace Death and Serious Injury: A Snapshot of Legislative Developments in Australia and Overseas", Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library, Research Brief No. 7 (2004-5), available: . (accessed September 20, 2006).
89. Jan Aart Scholte treats globalisation as the delinking of human lives from territorial geography in "The Globalization of World Politics", in J. Baylis and S. Smith (eds.), The Globalization of World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 15.
90. David Wood, "The International Campaign against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment: A Test Case for the Future of Globalisation?", Ethics, Place and Environment, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2000), pp. 25-45.
91. Paul Gready, "Conceptualising Globalisation and Human Rights: Boomerangs and Borders", International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 8, No. 3 (2004), pp. 345-354 (p. 350).