Re: [Biofuel] Pirates of the Corporation
I did sell all my stock in UC after that - as a matter of fact I am having a hard time trying to invest responsibly. Anyone have suggestions? Keith Addison wrote: Hello Mike How was the Bhopal case handled? It wasn't handled at all, it was grossly mishandled and is still being grossly mishandled. It's not a case, it's an atrocity. It's a whole bunch of atrocities. From a previous message : In a message dated 2/23/2004 7:30:44 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: such as Union Carbide's metamorphosis into Dow Chemicals after its corporate terrorism in Bhopal (1984). As I understood it, there was terrorism, but not by Union Carbide. Someone sabotaged the plant. Can you clue us in on what really happened? Please? I'd really like to know what happened and how and who was at fault. Damn... Sorry - same problem, a bulging file of info, 5.6Mb of it, 129 documents, have to pare it down. Yeah, well, okay... Bhopal was and still is today an appalling atrocity, still ongoing after 20 years, a major crime against humanity and something we all should know about. And be outraged about. So pardon my mumblings, I'm glad that you ask. You'll have to spend some time doing some research, but all the information is ready to hand, you just have to read it. The bald, bare facts are quite bad enough, but the full picture in all its sickening detail is far worse, and it's important to get the full picture. I hope your stomach is strong. It's not at all what you think - the sabotage story is just a part of the considerable amount of disinfo and evasion generated by UC/Dow, and even were it true, what the saboteur is alleged to have done should not have had those results, it should have been 100% impossible. Instead, it was just waiting to happen, and the company knew it. - Though the design of the methyl isocyanate (MIC) unit at Bhopal was based on Union Carbide's West Virginia plant, grossly lower standards were employed in the selection of construction material, monitoring devices and safety systems. - Union Carbide wanted to save money. Accidental leaks from all the Bhopal units were frequent, and operators and workers were regularly exposed to different substances. The factory was running at a loss. In November 1984 the most important safety systems were either closed down or not functioning. - Between 1980 and 1984 the work crew of the MIC unit was halved from 12 to six workers, the maintenance crew from six to two workers. On December 26, 1981 a plant operator was killed by a phosgene gas leak. Another phosgene leak in January 1982 severely injured 28 workers and in October the same year MIC escaped from a broken valve and four workers were exposed to the chemical. The senior officials of the corporation, privy to a business confidential safety audit in May 1982, were well aware of 61 hazards, 30 of them major and 11 in the dangerous phosgene/MIC units. Remedial measures were then taken at Union Carbide's identical MIC plant in West Virginia but not in Bhopal. In Bhopal, prior to the disaster, environmental safety concerns by private citizens were responded to by legal threats from the company and repressive managerial measures were employed against workers who raised occupational health concerns. - Secret Union Carbide documents obtained by discovery during a class action suit brought by survivors against the company in New York, reveal that the technology used at the fatal Bhopal factory - including the crucial units manufacturing carbon monoxide and methyl isocyanate (MIC) - was unproven, and that the company knew it would pose unknown risks. The corporation knew the danger, but regarded it as an acceptable business risk. - Senior Carbide officials, including ex-CEO Warren Anderson, not only knew about design defects and potential safety issues with the Bhopal factory, they actually authorised them. - On the night of the disaster, water (that was being used for washing the lines) entered the tank containing MIC through leaking valves. The refrigeration unit, which should have kept the MIC close to zero degrees centigrade, had been shut off by the company officials to save on electricity bills. The entrance of water in the tank, full of MIC at ambient temperature triggered off an exothermic runaway reaction an consequently the release of 27 tons of the lethal gas mixture. The safety systems, which in any case were not designed for such a runaway situation, were non-functioning and under repair. Lest the neighborhood community be unduly alarmed, the siren in the factory had been switched off. Poison clouds from the Union Carbide factory enveloped an arc of over 20 square kilometers before the residents could run away from its deadly hold. - People woke up coughing, gasping for breath, their eyes burning. Many fell dead as they ran. Others succumbed at the hospitals where doctors were overwhelmed by the numbers
Re: [Biofuel] Pirates of the Corporation
Invest in yourself. The rate of return is much higher. Todd Swearingen Mike Weaver wrote: I did sell all my stock in UC after that - as a matter of fact I am having a hard time trying to invest responsibly. Anyone have suggestions? Keith Addison wrote: Hello Mike How was the Bhopal case handled? It wasn't handled at all, it was grossly mishandled and is still being grossly mishandled. It's not a case, it's an atrocity. It's a whole bunch of atrocities. From a previous message : In a message dated 2/23/2004 7:30:44 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: such as Union Carbide's metamorphosis into Dow Chemicals after its corporate terrorism in Bhopal (1984). As I understood it, there was terrorism, but not by Union Carbide. Someone sabotaged the plant. Can you clue us in on what really happened? Please? I'd really like to know what happened and how and who was at fault. Damn... Sorry - same problem, a bulging file of info, 5.6Mb of it, 129 documents, have to pare it down. Yeah, well, okay... Bhopal was and still is today an appalling atrocity, still ongoing after 20 years, a major crime against humanity and something we all should know about. And be outraged about. So pardon my mumblings, I'm glad that you ask. You'll have to spend some time doing some research, but all the information is ready to hand, you just have to read it. The bald, bare facts are quite bad enough, but the full picture in all its sickening detail is far worse, and it's important to get the full picture. I hope your stomach is strong. It's not at all what you think - the sabotage story is just a part of the considerable amount of disinfo and evasion generated by UC/Dow, and even were it true, what the saboteur is alleged to have done should not have had those results, it should have been 100% impossible. Instead, it was just waiting to happen, and the company knew it. - Though the design of the methyl isocyanate (MIC) unit at Bhopal was based on Union Carbide's West Virginia plant, grossly lower standards were employed in the selection of construction material, monitoring devices and safety systems. - Union Carbide wanted to save money. Accidental leaks from all the Bhopal units were frequent, and operators and workers were regularly exposed to different substances. The factory was running at a loss. In November 1984 the most important safety systems were either closed down or not functioning. - Between 1980 and 1984 the work crew of the MIC unit was halved from 12 to six workers, the maintenance crew from six to two workers. On December 26, 1981 a plant operator was killed by a phosgene gas leak. Another phosgene leak in January 1982 severely injured 28 workers and in October the same year MIC escaped from a broken valve and four workers were exposed to the chemical. The senior officials of the corporation, privy to a business confidential safety audit in May 1982, were well aware of 61 hazards, 30 of them major and 11 in the dangerous phosgene/MIC units. Remedial measures were then taken at Union Carbide's identical MIC plant in West Virginia but not in Bhopal. In Bhopal, prior to the disaster, environmental safety concerns by private citizens were responded to by legal threats from the company and repressive managerial measures were employed against workers who raised occupational health concerns. - Secret Union Carbide documents obtained by discovery during a class action suit brought by survivors against the company in New York, reveal that the technology used at the fatal Bhopal factory - including the crucial units manufacturing carbon monoxide and methyl isocyanate (MIC) - was unproven, and that the company knew it would pose unknown risks. The corporation knew the danger, but regarded it as an acceptable business risk. - Senior Carbide officials, including ex-CEO Warren Anderson, not only knew about design defects and potential safety issues with the Bhopal factory, they actually authorised them. - On the night of the disaster, water (that was being used for washing the lines) entered the tank containing MIC through leaking valves. The refrigeration unit, which should have kept the MIC close to zero degrees centigrade, had been shut off by the company officials to save on electricity bills. The entrance of water in the tank, full of MIC at ambient temperature triggered off an exothermic runaway reaction an consequently the release of 27 tons of the lethal gas mixture. The safety systems, which in any case were not designed for such a runaway situation, were non-functioning and under repair. Lest the neighborhood community be unduly alarmed, the siren in the factory had been switched off. Poison clouds from the Union Carbide factory enveloped an arc of over 20 square kilometers before the residents could run away from its deadly hold. - People woke up coughing, gasping for breath, their eyes burning. Many fell
Re: [Biofuel] Pirates of the Corporation
I tried that, but then I embezzled the money and now Eliot Spitzer is after me! Appal Energy wrote: Invest in yourself. The rate of return is much higher. Todd Swearingen Mike Weaver wrote: I did sell all my stock in UC after that - as a matter of fact I am having a hard time trying to invest responsibly. Anyone have suggestions? Keith Addison wrote: Hello Mike How was the Bhopal case handled? It wasn't handled at all, it was grossly mishandled and is still being grossly mishandled. It's not a case, it's an atrocity. It's a whole bunch of atrocities. From a previous message : In a message dated 2/23/2004 7:30:44 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: such as Union Carbide's metamorphosis into Dow Chemicals after its corporate terrorism in Bhopal (1984). As I understood it, there was terrorism, but not by Union Carbide. Someone sabotaged the plant. Can you clue us in on what really happened? Please? I'd really like to know what happened and how and who was at fault. Damn... Sorry - same problem, a bulging file of info, 5.6Mb of it, 129 documents, have to pare it down. Yeah, well, okay... Bhopal was and still is today an appalling atrocity, still ongoing after 20 years, a major crime against humanity and something we all should know about. And be outraged about. So pardon my mumblings, I'm glad that you ask. You'll have to spend some time doing some research, but all the information is ready to hand, you just have to read it. The bald, bare facts are quite bad enough, but the full picture in all its sickening detail is far worse, and it's important to get the full picture. I hope your stomach is strong. It's not at all what you think - the sabotage story is just a part of the considerable amount of disinfo and evasion generated by UC/Dow, and even were it true, what the saboteur is alleged to have done should not have had those results, it should have been 100% impossible. Instead, it was just waiting to happen, and the company knew it. - Though the design of the methyl isocyanate (MIC) unit at Bhopal was based on Union Carbide's West Virginia plant, grossly lower standards were employed in the selection of construction material, monitoring devices and safety systems. - Union Carbide wanted to save money. Accidental leaks from all the Bhopal units were frequent, and operators and workers were regularly exposed to different substances. The factory was running at a loss. In November 1984 the most important safety systems were either closed down or not functioning. - Between 1980 and 1984 the work crew of the MIC unit was halved from 12 to six workers, the maintenance crew from six to two workers. On December 26, 1981 a plant operator was killed by a phosgene gas leak. Another phosgene leak in January 1982 severely injured 28 workers and in October the same year MIC escaped from a broken valve and four workers were exposed to the chemical. The senior officials of the corporation, privy to a business confidential safety audit in May 1982, were well aware of 61 hazards, 30 of them major and 11 in the dangerous phosgene/MIC units. Remedial measures were then taken at Union Carbide's identical MIC plant in West Virginia but not in Bhopal. In Bhopal, prior to the disaster, environmental safety concerns by private citizens were responded to by legal threats from the company and repressive managerial measures were employed against workers who raised occupational health concerns. - Secret Union Carbide documents obtained by discovery during a class action suit brought by survivors against the company in New York, reveal that the technology used at the fatal Bhopal factory - including the crucial units manufacturing carbon monoxide and methyl isocyanate (MIC) - was unproven, and that the company knew it would pose unknown risks. The corporation knew the danger, but regarded it as an acceptable business risk. - Senior Carbide officials, including ex-CEO Warren Anderson, not only knew about design defects and potential safety issues with the Bhopal factory, they actually authorised them. - On the night of the disaster, water (that was being used for washing the lines) entered the tank containing MIC through leaking valves. The refrigeration unit, which should have kept the MIC close to zero degrees centigrade, had been shut off by the company officials to save on electricity bills. The entrance of water in the tank, full of MIC at ambient temperature triggered off an exothermic runaway reaction an consequently the release of 27 tons of the lethal gas mixture. The safety systems, which in any case were not designed for such a runaway situation, were non-functioning and under repair. Lest the neighborhood community be unduly alarmed, the siren in the factory had been switched off. Poison clouds from the Union Carbide factory enveloped an arc of over 20 square kilometers before the residents could run
Re: [Biofuel] Pirates of the Corporation
I recently inherited some stock- the usual portfolio of stuff. I am looking for a socially relevant investment company, but I really don't know what I am doing. see for example http://www.domini.com/ http://www.calvertgroup.com/ http://www.paxworld.com/?rt=REF_gaw2 http://www.socialfunds.com/ http://www.coopamerica.org/socialinvesting/ Does anybody have recommendations among these type of funds? Mike Weaver wrote: I tried that, but then I embezzled the money and now Eliot Spitzer is after me! Appal Energy wrote: Invest in yourself. The rate of return is much higher. Todd Swearingen Mike Weaver wrote: I did sell all my stock in UC after that - as a matter of fact I am having a hard time trying to invest responsibly. Anyone have suggestions? Keith Addison wrote: Hello Mike How was the Bhopal case handled? It wasn't handled at all, it was grossly mishandled and is still being grossly mishandled. It's not a case, it's an atrocity. It's a whole bunch of atrocities. From a previous message : In a message dated 2/23/2004 7:30:44 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: such as Union Carbide's metamorphosis into Dow Chemicals after its corporate terrorism in Bhopal (1984). As I understood it, there was terrorism, but not by Union Carbide. Someone sabotaged the plant. Can you clue us in on what really happened? Please? I'd really like to know what happened and how and who was at fault. Damn... Sorry - same problem, a bulging file of info, 5.6Mb of it, 129 documents, have to pare it down. Yeah, well, okay... Bhopal was and still is today an appalling atrocity, still ongoing after 20 years, a major crime against humanity and something we all should know about. And be outraged about. So pardon my mumblings, I'm glad that you ask. You'll have to spend some time doing some research, but all the information is ready to hand, you just have to read it. The bald, bare facts are quite bad enough, but the full picture in all its sickening detail is far worse, and it's important to get the full picture. I hope your stomach is strong. It's not at all what you think - the sabotage story is just a part of the considerable amount of disinfo and evasion generated by UC/Dow, and even were it true, what the saboteur is alleged to have done should not have had those results, it should have been 100% impossible. Instead, it was just waiting to happen, and the company knew it. - Though the design of the methyl isocyanate (MIC) unit at Bhopal was based on Union Carbide's West Virginia plant, grossly lower standards were employed in the selection of construction material, monitoring devices and safety systems. - Union Carbide wanted to save money. Accidental leaks from all the Bhopal units were frequent, and operators and workers were regularly exposed to different substances. The factory was running at a loss. In November 1984 the most important safety systems were either closed down or not functioning. - Between 1980 and 1984 the work crew of the MIC unit was halved from 12 to six workers, the maintenance crew from six to two workers. On December 26, 1981 a plant operator was killed by a phosgene gas leak. Another phosgene leak in January 1982 severely injured 28 workers and in October the same year MIC escaped from a broken valve and four workers were exposed to the chemical. The senior officials of the corporation, privy to a business confidential safety audit in May 1982, were well aware of 61 hazards, 30 of them major and 11 in the dangerous phosgene/MIC units. Remedial measures were then taken at Union Carbide's identical MIC plant in West Virginia but not in Bhopal. In Bhopal, prior to the disaster, environmental safety concerns by private citizens were responded to by legal threats from the company and repressive managerial measures were employed against workers who raised occupational health concerns. - Secret Union Carbide documents obtained by discovery during a class action suit brought by survivors against the company in New York, reveal that the technology used at the fatal Bhopal factory - including the crucial units manufacturing carbon monoxide and methyl isocyanate (MIC) - was unproven, and that the company knew it would pose unknown risks. The corporation knew the danger, but regarded it as an acceptable business risk. - Senior Carbide officials, including ex-CEO Warren Anderson, not only knew about design defects and potential safety issues with the Bhopal factory, they actually authorised them. - On the night of the disaster, water (that was being used for washing the lines) entered the tank containing MIC through leaking valves. The refrigeration unit, which should have kept the MIC close to zero degrees centigrade, had been shut off by the company officials to save on electricity bills. The entrance of water in the tank, full of MIC at ambient temperature triggered off an exothermic
Re: [Biofuel] Pirates of the Corporation
Invest in yourself. The rate of return is much higher. Todd Swearingen Wise words Todd. Ryan ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Pirates of the Corporation
Invest in yourself. The rate of return is much higher. Todd Swearingen Indeed -- invest in a 100,000 gallon tank of safflower oil or ethanol underground in the back forty, or maybe a warehouse full of Mobil 1 motor oil:-) ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Pirates of the Corporation
Indeed -- invest in a 100,000 gallon tank of safflower oil or ethanol underground in the back forty, or maybe a warehouse full of Mobil 1 motor oil:-) Make sure to nitrogen pack the former. Ken Provost wrote: Invest in yourself. The rate of return is much higher. Todd Swearingen Indeed -- invest in a 100,000 gallon tank of safflower oil or ethanol underground in the back forty, or maybe a warehouse full of Mobil 1 motor oil:-) ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Pirates of the Corporation
How was the Bhopal case handled? Keith Addison wrote: http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2005/07/ATCA.html Pirates of the Corporation News: Holding American companies responsible for high crimes committed overseas. By Joshua Kurlantzick July/August 2005 Issue IN THE SPRING of 2003, Terry Collingsworth was holed up in a Bangkok hotel, meeting with a group of Burmese villagers. Terrified by horrors they'd witnessed in Burma, the villagers had contacted local human rights activists, who in turn had gone to Collingsworth, executive director of a small Washington nonprofit called the International Labor Rights Fund, for salvation. Now, almost 10 years later, over the course of days in the hotel, Collingsworth was still sifting through the tales of abuse. The group had claimed that the oil company Unocal had hired Burmese army troops to secure the construction of a pipeline through the country, and that the troops had forced people living near the pipeline into slave labor. One woman was allegedly shoved into a fire holding her baby. Collingsworth, a wiry, clean-cut lawyer who speaks in rat-a-tat phrases and travels incessantly to meet with clients all over the developing world, was affected by their stories but not intimidated. He himself had witnessed and survived many desperate situations, like the time two years earlier, while visiting potential clients in Aceh, Indonesia, he made it through 17 army checkpoints before driving right into a gunfight between rebels and the army. Collingsworth had carried the stories of the Burmese villagers halfway around the globe and into the United States justice system. There he had applied to their assertions a peculiar and potentially powerful law, the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). In 1789, Congress passed the statute-daring in scope for a young nation-that said violations of international law, the law of nations, could be heard by judges in the United States. Scholars speculate that the ATCA's intent was to protect American sailors from being press-ganged by foreign ships or to prevent pirates from finding safe haven in American waters. As those concerns waned, the law went dormant and stayed nearly forgotten for two centuries. Then, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, lawyers began using the ATCA to sue foreign human rights abusers on behalf of not only Americans but also injured citizens of foreign countries with weak judiciaries-a radical notion in the age of Abu Ghraib. More recently, these attorneys have dared go after not just individuals but corporations, filing ATCA cases seeking to hold American companies responsible for abetting the worst crimes overseas-like torture, forced labor, and genocide. So far, lawyers have filed more than two dozen such cases. One charges Coca-Cola with abetting the murder of trade unionists in Colombia; another alleges that a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco helped Nigerian soldiers who shot protesters in the oil-rich Niger Delta; another, filed by Collingsworth for clients in Aceh, charges ExxonMobil with providing infrastructure for a killer squad of the Indonesian military, even supplying the army with earthmovers to dig mass graves. Still another, filed by survivors of 9/11, claims that seven international banks abetted terrorism. And, in the boldest cases filed so far, Iraqis and Afghans allegedly tortured at U.S. prison camps have sued not only several military contractors but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as well. No plaintiff has yet won an ATCA case against a company, but Collingsworth has persisted, pitting his small staff against the nation's white- shoe firms and weathering appeal after appeal. (At no point did I feel their 180 lawyers gave them an advantage, he says staunchly.) In December, he facilitated the first legal settlement under the ATCA by a multinational company-a payout by Unocal to the Burmese villagers. After the Supreme Court determined that the law could indeed be used against companies, Unocal agreed to pay the villagers a sum in the tens of millions. Elliot Schrage, a former senior vice president at Gap who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations, believes this was a turning point. The Unocal settlement legitimates the idea that [ATCA] is a real business risk, he says. So serious a risk, in fact, that big business and the White House have gone on the offensive to undermine it. Multinationals have grouped together to file briefs seeking to scuttle ATCA cases, and the National Foreign Trade Council, an organization of corporate giants, has been touting a study warning that ATCA suits could seriously damage the world economy. Another study cautions that the threat of ATCA suits could discourage companies from rebuilding countries like war-torn Iraq. Some companies have considered drafting legislation that could kill or seriously limit the ATCA-legislation that could be pushed through Congress with little
Re: [Biofuel] Pirates of the Corporation
Hello Mike How was the Bhopal case handled? It wasn't handled at all, it was grossly mishandled and is still being grossly mishandled. It's not a case, it's an atrocity. It's a whole bunch of atrocities. From a previous message : In a message dated 2/23/2004 7:30:44 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: such as Union Carbide's metamorphosis into Dow Chemicals after its corporate terrorism in Bhopal (1984). As I understood it, there was terrorism, but not by Union Carbide. Someone sabotaged the plant. Can you clue us in on what really happened? Please? I'd really like to know what happened and how and who was at fault. Damn... Sorry - same problem, a bulging file of info, 5.6Mb of it, 129 documents, have to pare it down. Yeah, well, okay... Bhopal was and still is today an appalling atrocity, still ongoing after 20 years, a major crime against humanity and something we all should know about. And be outraged about. So pardon my mumblings, I'm glad that you ask. You'll have to spend some time doing some research, but all the information is ready to hand, you just have to read it. The bald, bare facts are quite bad enough, but the full picture in all its sickening detail is far worse, and it's important to get the full picture. I hope your stomach is strong. It's not at all what you think - the sabotage story is just a part of the considerable amount of disinfo and evasion generated by UC/Dow, and even were it true, what the saboteur is alleged to have done should not have had those results, it should have been 100% impossible. Instead, it was just waiting to happen, and the company knew it. - Though the design of the methyl isocyanate (MIC) unit at Bhopal was based on Union Carbide's West Virginia plant, grossly lower standards were employed in the selection of construction material, monitoring devices and safety systems. - Union Carbide wanted to save money. Accidental leaks from all the Bhopal units were frequent, and operators and workers were regularly exposed to different substances. The factory was running at a loss. In November 1984 the most important safety systems were either closed down or not functioning. - Between 1980 and 1984 the work crew of the MIC unit was halved from 12 to six workers, the maintenance crew from six to two workers. On December 26, 1981 a plant operator was killed by a phosgene gas leak. Another phosgene leak in January 1982 severely injured 28 workers and in October the same year MIC escaped from a broken valve and four workers were exposed to the chemical. The senior officials of the corporation, privy to a business confidential safety audit in May 1982, were well aware of 61 hazards, 30 of them major and 11 in the dangerous phosgene/MIC units. Remedial measures were then taken at Union Carbide's identical MIC plant in West Virginia but not in Bhopal. In Bhopal, prior to the disaster, environmental safety concerns by private citizens were responded to by legal threats from the company and repressive managerial measures were employed against workers who raised occupational health concerns. - Secret Union Carbide documents obtained by discovery during a class action suit brought by survivors against the company in New York, reveal that the technology used at the fatal Bhopal factory - including the crucial units manufacturing carbon monoxide and methyl isocyanate (MIC) - was unproven, and that the company knew it would pose unknown risks. The corporation knew the danger, but regarded it as an acceptable business risk. - Senior Carbide officials, including ex-CEO Warren Anderson, not only knew about design defects and potential safety issues with the Bhopal factory, they actually authorised them. - On the night of the disaster, water (that was being used for washing the lines) entered the tank containing MIC through leaking valves. The refrigeration unit, which should have kept the MIC close to zero degrees centigrade, had been shut off by the company officials to save on electricity bills. The entrance of water in the tank, full of MIC at ambient temperature triggered off an exothermic runaway reaction an consequently the release of 27 tons of the lethal gas mixture. The safety systems, which in any case were not designed for such a runaway situation, were non-functioning and under repair. Lest the neighborhood community be unduly alarmed, the siren in the factory had been switched off. Poison clouds from the Union Carbide factory enveloped an arc of over 20 square kilometers before the residents could run away from its deadly hold. - People woke up coughing, gasping for breath, their eyes burning. Many fell dead as they ran. Others succumbed at the hospitals where doctors were overwhelmed by the numbers and lacked information on the nature of the poisoning. By the third day of the disaster, an estimated 8,000 people had died from direct exposure to the gases and a
[Biofuel] Pirates of the Corporation
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2005/07/ATCA.html Pirates of the Corporation News: Holding American companies responsible for high crimes committed overseas. By Joshua Kurlantzick July/August 2005 Issue IN THE SPRING of 2003, Terry Collingsworth was holed up in a Bangkok hotel, meeting with a group of Burmese villagers. Terrified by horrors they'd witnessed in Burma, the villagers had contacted local human rights activists, who in turn had gone to Collingsworth, executive director of a small Washington nonprofit called the International Labor Rights Fund, for salvation. Now, almost 10 years later, over the course of days in the hotel, Collingsworth was still sifting through the tales of abuse. The group had claimed that the oil company Unocal had hired Burmese army troops to secure the construction of a pipeline through the country, and that the troops had forced people living near the pipeline into slave labor. One woman was allegedly shoved into a fire holding her baby. Collingsworth, a wiry, clean-cut lawyer who speaks in rat-a-tat phrases and travels incessantly to meet with clients all over the developing world, was affected by their stories but not intimidated. He himself had witnessed and survived many desperate situations, like the time two years earlier, while visiting potential clients in Aceh, Indonesia, he made it through 17 army checkpoints before driving right into a gunfight between rebels and the army. Collingsworth had carried the stories of the Burmese villagers halfway around the globe and into the United States justice system. There he had applied to their assertions a peculiar and potentially powerful law, the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). In 1789, Congress passed the statute-daring in scope for a young nation-that said violations of international law, the law of nations, could be heard by judges in the United States. Scholars speculate that the ATCA's intent was to protect American sailors from being press-ganged by foreign ships or to prevent pirates from finding safe haven in American waters. As those concerns waned, the law went dormant and stayed nearly forgotten for two centuries. Then, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, lawyers began using the ATCA to sue foreign human rights abusers on behalf of not only Americans but also injured citizens of foreign countries with weak judiciaries-a radical notion in the age of Abu Ghraib. More recently, these attorneys have dared go after not just individuals but corporations, filing ATCA cases seeking to hold American companies responsible for abetting the worst crimes overseas-like torture, forced labor, and genocide. So far, lawyers have filed more than two dozen such cases. One charges Coca-Cola with abetting the murder of trade unionists in Colombia; another alleges that a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco helped Nigerian soldiers who shot protesters in the oil-rich Niger Delta; another, filed by Collingsworth for clients in Aceh, charges ExxonMobil with providing infrastructure for a killer squad of the Indonesian military, even supplying the army with earthmovers to dig mass graves. Still another, filed by survivors of 9/11, claims that seven international banks abetted terrorism. And, in the boldest cases filed so far, Iraqis and Afghans allegedly tortured at U.S. prison camps have sued not only several military contractors but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as well. No plaintiff has yet won an ATCA case against a company, but Collingsworth has persisted, pitting his small staff against the nation's white- shoe firms and weathering appeal after appeal. (At no point did I feel their 180 lawyers gave them an advantage, he says staunchly.) In December, he facilitated the first legal settlement under the ATCA by a multinational company-a payout by Unocal to the Burmese villagers. After the Supreme Court determined that the law could indeed be used against companies, Unocal agreed to pay the villagers a sum in the tens of millions. Elliot Schrage, a former senior vice president at Gap who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations, believes this was a turning point. The Unocal settlement legitimates the idea that [ATCA] is a real business risk, he says. So serious a risk, in fact, that big business and the White House have gone on the offensive to undermine it. Multinationals have grouped together to file briefs seeking to scuttle ATCA cases, and the National Foreign Trade Council, an organization of corporate giants, has been touting a study warning that ATCA suits could seriously damage the world economy. Another study cautions that the threat of ATCA suits could discourage companies from rebuilding countries like war-torn Iraq. Some companies have considered drafting legislation that could kill or seriously limit the ATCA-legislation that could be pushed through Congress with little fanfare. Yet Collingsworth thinks there's still time to win
