Dow-DuPont merger may scupper Bhopal disaster compensation, fears UN official

Victims from the Bhopal chemical disaster may never receive compensation after the merger of Dow Chemicals and DuPont, a senior UN official has warned.

An estimated 22,000 people died and half a million were injured when toxic methyl isocyanate fog leaked out of a chemical factory in Bhopal, India in the early hours of 3 December 1984. While it did not operate the plant at the time, campaigners and the Indian courts have tried to tie Dow to the tragedy following its 2001 acquisition of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) – the US-based majority owner of Union Carbide India which ran the factory.

Now, in an exclusive interview with The Independent, the UN’s special rapporteur on hazardous substances and wastes, Baskut Tuncak, has said that he is “deeply concerned” the $130bn merger between Dow Chemical and DuPont which was completed earlier this month may erase any remaining possibility of the victims of the disaster seeing an “effective remedy” more than three decades on from the tragedy.

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His comments come as he prepares to present a report to the UN Human Rights Council which criticises corporate structures, including parent-subsidiary relationships, that “prevent access to justice” by limiting liability for industrial accidents.

In a statement released this week, the newly named DowDuPont described the gas leak as “a terrible tragedy” but continued to deny any connection to or responsibility for the disaster, arguing they only acquired Union Carbide 16 years after the event.

A $470 million (£351m) settlement was agreed in 1991 by Union Carbide but has been the subject of a lawsuit since 2010 after the Indian government sought to re-open the case after campaign groups and the government itself agreed the initial compensation level was based on disputed figures.

Speaking to the Independent, Joe Westby, a campaigner on business and human rights at Amnesty International, echoed Tuncak’s sentiments and said it will now be even more difficult for victims to “pin down” who is responsible.

“Already Union Carbide has been able to hide behind complex, multinational corporate structures for decades to avoid accountability,” he said. “This merger will only make that more complex so that is why it is very worrying.”