Business Law and Ethics: Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Business Law and
Ethics (Individual
Report)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART 2............................................................................................................................................3
Bhopal Gas Tragedy...............................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Commercial law and ethics are legislations and rules that governs the functioning of
business. It is important to comply with the laws so that the business does not face any hardships.
Business law is an umbrella that has different legislations under it that involves data protection,
contract law, employment law, companies Act, intellectual property laws and etc. Ethics are
moral values or the principles which must be followed by the business in order to ensure smooth
running of it. This report shall deal with Bhopal gas tragedy.
PART 2
Bhopal Gas Tragedy
The Bhopal Disaster, also called as Bhopal gas tragedy is an incident of leak of gas on the
night of 2nd and 3rd December 1984 at Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant
situated in the city of Bhopal. A chemical called methyl isocyanate (MIC) split out from the
UCIL pesticide factory which turned the city of Bhopal into the gas chamber. Around 30 tonnes
of MIC gas was leaked which affected more than 600000 workers and killed more than 15000
people and created a panic in the city as thousands of people attempted to flee from Bhopal.
Warning bell before the disaster
In the year 1969, the factory of UCIL was producing the Sevin, a pesticide by using
Methyl isocyanate as its intermediate. The trade unions in the city of Bhopal complained of the
pollution which was done by the factory in the year 1976 (Manzoor and Ali, 2018). Just after few
years of this, one of the worker in the factory accidently inhaled the toxic phosgene gas which
resulted in its death just after couple of hours. Soon after this incident, the journalist of Bhopal
began its investigation and published its finding which stated that come around citizens of
Bhopal, all are in the border of the volcano. Another incident which alarmed this tragedy was
that two years before this disaster, approx. 45 workers remained exposed to the phosgene and
admitted to the care centre and in the year 1983- 84, there was leak of the gas which included
phosgene, methyl isocyanate, mono methylamine and carbon tetrachloride.
Bhopal gas tragedy
In 1984, December 2, around 11 PM, when approx. 1 million population of Bhopal was
sleeping, the manager of factory noticed that there was little leak of the MIC gas and the
enhanced pressure in the tank where gas was stored. It is found that the scrubber of vent gas