Business Law and Ethics: Bhopal Gas Tragedy Ethical Analysis Report

This report examines the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, focusing on the ethical and unethical activities of Union Carbide. It details the disaster caused by the release of methyl isocyanate from the Union Carbide India Ltd pesticide factory, which resulted in the death of over 15,000 people and affected over 600,000 workers. The report analyzes Union Carbide's corporate negligence, including ignoring safety measures, disregarding employee concerns, and failing to conduct proper safety audits. It highlights the company's unethical behaviors, such as overloading chemical tanks, ignoring safety protocols, and sabotaging arguments raised by employees regarding safety. The analysis also touches upon the ethical responsibilities of the company in compensating victims and providing adequate treatment. Furthermore, the report underscores the government's role in the disaster, particularly its failure to enforce safety measures and conduct thorough audits. The conclusion emphasizes that Union Carbide's unethical activities and negligence were the primary causes of the tragedy, which has had a lasting impact on the city of Bhopal and its residents.

BUSINESS LAW AND
ETHICS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. Ethical aspect of US Union Carbide........................................................................................3
2. Analysis of Ethical and Unethical activities which are followed by the Union Carbide.........5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Bhopal gas tragedy was held on December 2, 1984 with the release of harmful chemical
gas METHYL ISOCYANATE split from the Union Carbide India Lt d's, a company of pesticide
factory effect the city and become colossal Gas chamber (Hanley, 2020). It was first and most
affected industrial disaster with the leakage of at least 30 tonnes of methyl isocyanate and killed
more than 15000 people and cause damage to over 600,000 workers.
MAIN BODY.
1. Ethical aspect of US Union Carbide.
After the disaster, Union Carbide had some responsibility towards the city and the people
affected through the tragedy. The leakage of gas have been affected more than 600,000 workers
and died over 15000 people. Their ethical responsibility is to compensate with high amount of
money and proper treatment of the peoples affected from it. As, it not only affect the people but
affect the whole environment including humans and animals. Children below 15 year old were
over 200,000 and pregnant women were over 3000 had suffered with their life (Senthilkumar and
et.al., 2020).
The ethical negligence of the company is been done through in many ways which shows
the unethical behaviour of US Union Carbide and their chairman and CEO is through followings
ways:
 Argument on Corporate negligence: The company shows some unethical behaviour by
ignoring the safety purpose of the employees and followed the dangerous working
environment in the small city and developing it. The company is responsible for the
disaster and while the ethical terms are followed by them, is to compensate each of the
workers and with a standard amount and providing the proper hospital treatment of the
employees or people affected through this tragedy. As, the company is haven't followed
the safety precaution of the factory and improve the technology with time. The also
overloading of gas in tanks that create danger to city and workers life and results in huge
disaster in the history.
The unethical activities been done by the Union carbide by developing such a huge chemical
plant which cause high damage to whole country and putting people's live in danger through the
over filling the chemical tanks in the planets without any precautions and safety measured are

been ignored by the company. Whereas, the chairman shows the unethical behaviour through
flowed out of government plane to their city without punished by government for the reason of
damage. While the other two companies which are part of Union Carbide and charged by the
Indian Government. The government have been showed up with helping the chairman to flow to
their country to get safe and remain without punishable (Kok, and et.al., 2019).
 Safety Audit: One of the major reason which affect the whole city people and lost their
lives is the safety audit ignorance by the company and the government which lead to
occur this huge disaster. The unethical activity is been showed up by the company in the
pesticide factory which content high danger to employees, environment and city. The
MIC unit storage tanks are filled overload and not taken any effective action to prevent
the catastrophic failure in the tank. The main negligence of the plant was it was not
designed with the main design and been modified according to their own way without
any approval of authorities. This shows the irresponsible and unethical manner of doing
business as it was highly chemical toxic and working in danger plant which should be
maintained and design properly with the appropriate safety issues. But the Union Carbide
ignored the approved the design and plant was not constructed according to plan.
The government ignorance are also considered in this part as they also had ignored the safety
measure and proper safety audit from government side is not appropriate which cause to such
huge damage to people and the environment. The almost whole city is been affected due to the
tragedy and losing lives of many people.
 Sabotage of the Arguments raised by employees: Again the unethical activities is been
raised in the form of Sabotage of arguments which are raised by the employees and the
locals. Instead of accepting the fault of the huge disaster occurred with the mistakes of
company, they had ignored the statements which are raised by the employees regarding
safety and other unethical activities which are continued by Union Carbide. The
compensation of $470 Millions are been charged for the damage to the Bhopal gas
Tragedy which was paid immediately and been compensated to people of Bhopal who are
affected with the disaster and lose their lives.
The Union Carbide have ignored all the statements which are charged by the public and
governments of India as their the company is not under the Indian jurisdiction and Indian laws.
They are not been charged with any other charges with few years but local Bhopal authority

Anderson and charged with 10 year imprisonment in 1991. The Union Carbide is the foreign
company which shows the irresponsible behaviour towards the Bhopal industry with content
high volume of gases and cause harm to human life directly and indirect to worker without any
safety precaution and measures, environmental factors are also affected through these plants
which cause affection to climate condition.
2. Analysizes of Ethical and Unethical activities which are followed by the Union Carbide.
While the tragedy is been occurred with the negligence of company and some part the
government of India (Raghunandan, and Jayaprakash, 2020). Union Carbide is also followed
some ethical activities which are charged from them by the government in form of Crime against
Humanity and compensate the effected people by the disaster. The file is been charged in US
Federal class action under the U. S Alien Torts Claim act and sought the damage for personal
injury, medical monitoring and injunction relief through clean drinking water supplies for the
locals people and near places. Some ethical activities is followed by focusing on providing the
pesticides chemicals for the farmers and to increase the agriculture activity in India.
However, there are many unethical activities which are done by the side of the Union
Carbide like not maintain the proper safety precaution and guideline which re followed by them
and being neglected the safety activities and is responsible for putting danger in worker life and
health. The gas METHYL ISOCYANATE is safe only when it is maintained properly and
highly reactive with the heat. This chemical cause damage to human life and health and directly
attract the human and affect human lungs function, pregnancy loss of women, increase infant
mortality and many more which affect the whole life of people and also affect the future
generation of human. The disaster is occurred because of inappropriate activities and
maintenance in the plants without any proper guidance and measures. Union Carbide not only
ignore the proper working of plant but also ignore the measures of workers heath and
environmental damage which is caused by the chemical. Instead of acknowledge the facts of
tragedy who are effected from the tragedy company sabotage all the argument and statements
applied on them. Also, they had not being charged from any punishment under the laws and rules
which are not followed by the company and danger the lives and health of locals.
This type of plants are maintained and prepared with highly technology used and
prepared by professional to prevent the changes of any unwanted activities and incidents. This
type of plants are to follow the proper maintenance and without any negligent of any process.

The storage tanks should be in separate place from the city and citizen as they are very harmful
for the human lives without any safety precaution. The report by International Labour
organization says that Bhopal gas Tragedy is one of the major industrial incident occurred in the
history. As, Union Carbide ignore some important facts and process of maintain the chemical at
level, they build wrong structure of plant which was not approved according to law. No tanks
were filled with 50% of the tanks with chemicals and remaining were pressurized with the
nitrogen gas in the tank. Where one of the tank lost the pressurized by the nitrogen gas due to
high filling of chemical in tanks out of the set level. This results in the huge disaster occurred in
the Bhopal City. If union Carbide take precaution on time, the damage can be prevented but the
unethical activity from the side of company by not taking correct actions and safety of people are
ignored (De, and et.al., 2020).
Nowadays, the country laws are very strict that are to be followed by each industry. By
measuring the proper safety audit in the company's plants and government had levied some strict
laws to avoid such type of disaster in future and companies are wholly responsible for the such
activities. Government had applied some rules and regulation that are to be followed by
companies regarding safety of employees and workers health.
CONCLUSION
This report concludes that the Union carbide followed some unethical activities' ion the
plants of Bhopal which results in such a huge disaster and affect the lives of over 600,000 people
of city. The company is wholly responsible for such disaster due to lack of inappropriate
activities which suffer other employees and citizens.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Hanley, B.J., 2020. What Caused the Bhopal Gas Tragedy? The Philosophical Importance of
Causal and Pragmatic Details.
Senthilkumar, C.S., and et.al., 2020. Susceptibility of the Bhopal–methyl isocyanate (MIC)–gas–
tragedy survivors and their offspring to COVID-19: What we know, what we don’t and
what we should?. Ciencia & saude coletiva. 25. pp.4225-4230.
Kok, T.L., and et.al., 2019. Bhopal gas tragedy–the scar of process safety. Loss Prevention
Bulletin. 269. p.11.
Raghunandan, D. and Jayaprakash, N.D., 2020. Bhopal gas disaster: Delhi Science Forum and
People’s Science Movement in India-In memory of Dr. Amit Sengupta. Saúde em
Debate. 44. pp.120-134.
De, S., and et.al., 2020. Chronic respiratory morbidity in the Bhopal gas disaster cohorts: a time-
trend analysis of cross-sectional data (1986–2016). Public health. 186. pp.20-27.
Online
WHAT WAS BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY. 2021. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.business-standard.com/about/what-is-bhopal-gas-tragedy>
The Ethical Enginners. 2021. [Online]. Available
through:<https://ethicalengineer.ttu.edu/studies/case-study-bhopal-gas-tragedy>
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