Dow Chemicals And The Bhopal Disaster

EDM number 190 in 2009-10, proposed by Desmond Turner on 24/11/2009.
Categorised under the topics of Asia, Companies and Industrial health and safety.

That this House regrets that a quarter of a century after the world's worst industrial massacre, the people of Bhopal remain in an endless cycle of suffering that has cast them in a perpetual state of victimhood and that, 25 years on, Dow Chemicals continues to express contempt for the rule of law by refusing to produce the prime accused in court or abide by the universal obligation of the polluter pays principle thereby denying those grievously harmed the remotest prospect of natural justice; further notes that as a direct consequence 25,000 people are daily, exposed to water heavily contaminated with volatile organic chemicals known to cause cancer, organ damage and birth deformities arising in a third generation of Bhopal victims; believes that ethical corporate governance is a prerequisite of international commerce today and until it is made to be accountable Dow Chemicals' culpable neglect of Bhopal creates a legacy of corporate impunity; and urges the EU to proactively engage the government of India through its Empowered Commission to set the agenda for a site contamination assessment of the former Union Carbide Corporation site in Bhopal City as a prelude to brokering an agreement to clean up the site 25 years after the disaster.

This motion has been signed by a total of 42 MPs, 1 of these signatures have been withdrawn.