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This study explores the concept of 'slow violence,' a term coined by Rob Nixon to describe the insidious, often unnoticed effects of power imbalances over time. It examines how 'state vampirism' and 'industrial capitalism' oppress marginalized populations, with a focus on India's dependency on countries like the USA. The research juxtaposes exploitation and deprivation in human-induced disasters, such as the Bhopal Gas tragedy (1984) and Chornobyl (1986), through the lens of Marxist subalternism. It also analyzes the portrayal of these themes in the 2023 Netflix series "The Railway Men: The Untold Story of Bhopal 1984," highlighting the plight of slum dwellers near Bhopal's carbide factory. Ultimately, this paper questions the victimization process by capitalist multinationals, positioning Bhopal as a prime example of 'corporate violence.'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream media narratives and the official historiography of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy have overlooked the testimonies of disaster survivors, culturally discounting the authority of witnessing in both scholarly discourse and public arenas. This has left a space for novelists, as writer-activists, to trace the socio-political, economic and ecological injustices of post-colonial disasters like the Bhopal gas leak. Indra Sinha's Animal's People bears witness to such accounts and recreates the night of December 2–3, 1984, through the testimonies of the people surviving the gas disaster. This article identifies Sinha's narrative technique as 'eco-testimony', which strategically revives hitherto undocumented survivor testimonies and their experiences of eco-social exploitation in the post-disaster environment and forges a voice of dissent against the uneven, attritional and necropolitical violence of multinational companies and their chief ally, the neocolonial nation-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution, as part of the Indian Feminist Judgement Project, we reconsider the decision of the Supreme Court of India in the Charan Lal Sahu case that followed the Bhopal gas leak tragedy. We present a dissenting opinion on the case, finding that the law empowering the State to supplant the victim-survivors as plaintiffs was unconstitutional. Alongside, we offer a brief commentary on why this finding comports with what a feminist judge on the bench might have decided. We consider a variety of ways in which feminist criticism of the majority decision might proceed, and how this criticism informs our rewriting. We also consider a set of persistent questions about feminist judging, and ways in which our rewriting, in turn, might be subject to further feminist objections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bhopal gas tragedy essentially marked the beginning of mass tort jurisprudence in India. When the US courts dismissed the consolidated lawsuit resulting out of the Bhopal disaster and returned it to India for judicial determination, the Indian legal system was confronted with one of the biggest challenges it had ever faced. The difficulty arising out of the unprecedented extent and intensity of the event was compounded by a lack of prior experience of the Indian legal system in dealing with mass tort cases. Bhopal brought out the inadequacy of the then-prevalent traditional common law of tort in dealing with the legal challenges posed by the case, thus, underscoring the need for modifying the existing tort law doctrine. The most significant modification introduced to the Indian tort law in the wake of Bhopal was the dissolution of public-private law divide through the invocation of the doctrine of parens patriae and the enunciation of the principle of absolute liability. The primary thesis of this paper is that the rationale and need underlying this dissolution of public-private law divide can be well understood in the light of critical social scientific studies on risk. As the concept of risk is inextricably linked with anthropogenic mass disasters, the critical epistemologies of risk provide strong empirical and normative foundations for the development of a distinct mass tort jurisprudence, much needed in today's post-modern 'risk society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reprint of the article "Environmental Surprise, Expecting the Unexpected," by Robert W, Kates and William C. Clark, which appeared in the March 1996 issue is presented. It explores the environmental surprises such as the Legionnaire's disease, the Bhopal disaster, and the depletion of stratospheric ozone layer. It also explains the systematic ways of thinking about and classifying environmental surprises to improve the ability of society to anticipate and respond to environmental surprises.

This article explores the way in which Indra Sinha’s (2007) novel Animal’s People showcases the challenges of evidencing mass suffering in an increasingly global arena. Finding that the globalized context of international law is grounded in a discourse of comparison, it argues that Sinha’s representation of the Bhopal Gas Disaster veers between authenticating atrocity by evidencing its universality, putting it within the legislative purview of international human rights, and simultaneously evidencing its uniqueness, thus taking it outside the global economy. The article shows how the fallout of atrocity in Bhopal, the product of globalized corporation gone terribly wrong, gets caught between local and global spheres of legal redress, and it enquires into the ways in which a body of postcolonial literature navigates between the universal and the particular to make the experience of one local atrocity legible to a global audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indra Sinha's 2007 novel Animal's People is a fictionalised account of the Bhopal industrial disaster with a physically disfigured and twisted protagonist who is vulgar, comical, and often deeply touching in his observations about life and the plight of his neighbors. While the novel has received much attention for these aspects, including being awarded a Commonwealth Writer's Prize and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, scholarly attention has largely ignored the intertwining of Animal's dual animal/human nature with the destruction of the chemical spill that twisted his body. This article employs a theoretical frame based on Monique Allewaert's concept of parahumanity, as well as a variety of work in posthumanism to explore the ways in which Animal's denial of a singular category of being is representative of a creative force. This force rises from the destruction of the chemical spill and serves as a means of survival for Animal and the people of Khaufpur. However, for this generative force to come into being the past must be reckoned with. Animal presents this reckoning as he consistently declares his inhumanity while maintaining traits that firmly cement his conditioned human nature, including his quest for sex, love, and his occasional misogynistic attitudes. What Animal and the novel as a whole ultimately suggest is that rather than being seen as wastelands, sites of erasure can serve as spaces for invention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the politics of scale in the commemorative work undertaken by the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB), a coalition of social movement organisations (SMOs) seeking justice for the victims of the Bhopal Gas Disaster of 1984. The argument traces how the ICJB attempted to contest the localisation of the disaster by the Indian state and the transnational corporations involved. I outline how the disaster, which had been scaled down from an extraordinary global event to a private non-issue, was re-scaled successfully across multiple scales of meaning and regulation through ICJB's mobilisation of the frame of 'second/ongoing poisoning'. This contestation over the scaling of the disaster crucially involved multiple processes of memory-work. Drawing on archival research and ethnographic fieldwork, this paper reveals how the remembrance of the disaster functioned as a key site of the discursive and performative re-framings required to reinstate multi-scalar accountability for the disaster. Overall, the paper establishes the utility of the politics of scale approach in mapping the dynamics of the transnational mobilisations of memory by SMOs in pursuit of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about safety regulation in chemical engineering. It is mentioned that how industries in U.S. can enhance the environmental, health, and safety (EHS) procedures, standards, and laws, minimizeexposure to hazards chemicals, and history of various safety codes implemented in 19th century. The article also discusses various industrial accidents including Flixborough disaster, Seveso disaster, and Bhopal tragedy.

Health effects of methyl isocyanate (MIC) exposure were mostly reported on the one-time acute exposure in Bhopal population. Epidemiological survey conducted by the Indian apex body of health research has been reported as Technical Reports, which were lacking in peer review by the expert epidemiologic scientists. The present pilot survey was aimed to measure the health effects 30 years post disaster in MIC-exposed survivors. Questionnaire-based survey has captured every health complaint in 168 individuals and grouped as systemic functions for interpreting the long-term effects of MIC. Key health parameters, including reproductive outcome and respiratory/orthopedic/general morbidity, were prevalent among the severely exposed population compared to control and moderately exposed groups. The collective incidence of diabetes, hypertension, and cancer also was prevalent in the severely exposed group. Ophthalmic morbidity was almost similar in the three groups, rather with higher incidence in the control group, though not statistically significant. Among all health parameters, reproductive, ophthalmic, and respiratory effects were prevalent over others. Although the incidence of health problems has been declined among the survivors, long-term effect is apparent as scars of one-time acute exposure might trigger sequel of long-term effects. Additionally, acquisition of genetic rearrangements, survival of T cell sub-populations, variable latency of chemical effect on DNA nucleosides, nutritional status, occupational exposure, living environment, lifestyle, and overall gene–environment interaction might perturb individual immunity and favor onset of long-term illness in a scenario of background exposure to MIC. However, the exercise should be continued on a larger sample size for drawing a conclusive result on long-term MIC effect on survivors’ health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on field research principally from contexts of medical blood donation in North India, this article describes how gifts that are given often critique—by obviation—those that remain ungiven: the care not provided by the Indian state for Bhopal survivors, the family members unwilling to donate blood for their transfusion-requiring relative, and so on. In this way, giving can come to look like a form of criticism. The critiques that acts of giving stage are of absences and deficits: we present cases where large paper hearts donated by survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Disaster to the prime minister of India signal his lack of one, where donated human blood critiques others' unwillingness to do so, where acts of blood donation critique and protest communal violence, and where similar acts of giving over simultaneously highlight a deficit in familial affects and an attempt to resuscitate damaged relational forms. We thus illustrate how critique can operate philanthropically by way of partonomic relations between the given and not-given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bhopal pesticide accident triggered a number of responses from the companies involved from the Indian government as well as reforms in the United States. These initiatives reached a range of different conclusions that arguably failed to provide a coherent framework for action around the globe. In other domains, organisations such as the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), provide a common point of reference for the many different investigations that may be conducted in the aftermath of an accident. The early origin of the international aircraft safety investigation process can be traced back more than 70 years and has developed in the course of time to be useful in improving aviation safety. Despite these practices can’t applied directly to other industry they may help to develop good practices. Even today, the international chemical industry lacks international guidelines for safety investigations. There are, however, initiatives to support investigations within individual nations. Without greater consistency, we argue that there is little prospect of ensuring international cooperation in mitigating the consequences or reducing the likelihood of future accidents across increasingly globalized chemical industries. This contribution elaborates on the engines for change, taking into account system inherent properties and safety management concepts that serve as barriers for implementation. Such barriers are of a methodological nature, originating from differences in goals and perspectives between accident investigation in aviation and risk management strategies in nuclear and chemical industries. We also identify opportunities to overcome these barriers through the exchange of good practice across these industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eye-related symptoms were prominent at the time of and soon after the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. We conducted a vision screening on the survivors to examine their current ocular status. Fifty-nine patients enrolled. We analysed the results from 48 patients (mean age 51 ± 12 years) who had a documented history of gas exposure. The commonly reported symptoms were vision difficulties (n = 30), watering (n = 21) and headaches (n = 16). Thirty patients needed spectacles, 30 had cataracts and 17 had pinguecula. We found the prevalence of pinguecula to be significantly higher in this cohort. The need for vision care among this underserved population is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asia as a region bears the brunt of both natural and industrial disasters, and when these catastrophes occur, the consequences are disproportionately deadly. Between 1970 and 2011, 74.6 percent of the world's disaster-related fatalities occurred in the Asia-Pacific region (ESCAP and UNISDR 2012, 5). And the toll may be even worse than these numbers indicate; it is easier to assess gross mortality in the acute period of a disaster than to assess the scope of the long-term health effects. This is especially true in developing areas, where there may be preexisting risks and hazards, such as extreme poverty or endemic infectious disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methyl isocyanate (MIC) is a toxic industrial chemical that is documented as a potent respiratory toxicant. We investigated cell-mediated immunity (CMI) in the MIC-exposed long-term survivors and their offspring born after the Bhopal gas-leak tragedy in 1984. Several earlier reports show inconsistency in the assessment of immunological effects of MIC on the human population. In these studies, important factors including lifestyle attributes were overlooked. We incorporated these factors also in our study of the basic cell-mediated immune function in the Bhopal MIC-affected population. Twenty-seven years after exposure, we assessed the circulating T-lymphocyte frequency using E-Rosette assay. A total of 46 MIC-exposed healthy long-term survivors and their offspring were studied vis-a-vis parallel gender–age group-matched unexposed controls from Bhopal and various other regions of India. The influence of several lifestyle variabilities (smoking, alcohol intake, and tobacco chewing) on T-lymphocyte frequency was also taken into consideration. Our observations suggest that Erythrocyte-Rosette-forming cell (E-RFC) distribution frequency is largely insignificant in the MIC-affected population as compared to controls (p > 0.05). In the MIC-affected tobacco chewers, there was a trend of suppression in CMI (relative decrease = 10.3%) as compared to nonchewers. Overall, our results show negligible long-term effect of MIC on CMI measured in terms of E-RFC frequency. These observations are not in agreement with earlier findings that immunosuppressive effects of MIC exposure persist in the T-cells of the affected population. However, atypical lymphocytes were frequently observed as E-RFC in the exposed females when compared to all other subgroups. Hematopoietic disorders (atypical lymphocytosis) in the MIC-affected population along with previous reports on the cytogenetic and humoral immune system linking cancer risk and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost 30 long years have been passed since the World's worst disastrous industrial tragedy at Bhopal but its havoc still upsets our memories and pains our heart. This article gives a detailed overview on the possible causes of the accident and state of affairs of the city on the ill-fated night of 2 December 1984. Since the article is incorporated in the special issue “Science, Responsibility and Governance,” attempts have been made to keep the subject matter of the article within the framework of the journal theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay uses Indra Sinha's 2007 novel,Animal's People, as a critical lens to analyse the discourse of scenario planning. I argue that scenario planning, a strategy of speculation about possible futures, elides history—specifically the intertwined processes of colonialism and capitalism—in favour of the idea of globalization as an inexorable unfolding of the world as a complex system. Following a brief genealogy of the discourse of scenario planning that highlights its Cold War origins, and ongoing function in imagining, and helping to secure, the future of global capitalism, I offer as counterpoint a postcolonial reading ofAnimal's People. A fictional exploration of the aftermath of the 1984 Union Carbide factory gas leak in Bhopal, India, the novel contests (thematically and formally) the hegemonic temporality of globalization that informs scenario planning and the model of risk management it inspires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This content analysis examines how The New York Times and The Washington Post framed the Bhopal gas leak in India in 1984 and the British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Findings indicate that the frame for the Union Carbide-caused Bhopal incident de-emphasized the U.S. corporation’s role. Conversely, the coverage of the BP spill emphasized the faults of the foreign-owned company within the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1970s, there were many reports of toxic hazards at corporate subsidiaries in the developing world that were no longer tolerated in the corporations' "home" countries. Following the chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, in 1984, leading corporations then announced that they applied uniform standards of worker and environmental protection worldwide. With globalization, corporations should also be obliged to take responsibility for their separate supplier, contractor and distributor companies, and licensees of their technology.The asbestos industry today consists of national corporations. Individual countries must overcome the influence of the asbestos-exporting countries and asbestos companies and stop building with asbestos, as recommended by WHO, ILO, and World Bank. WHO precautions for limiting governmental interaction with the tobacco industry should be applied in dealing with the asbestos industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the use of profanity and the grotesque in Indra Sinha's 2008 novel Animal's People, which fictionalizes the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. I argue that Sinha's text utilizes the profane to strip away the artifices separating the international readership the novel targets from the subaltern figures upon whom it centres. In doing so, it calls into question attitudes like those employed by Union Carbide when the company's case came to trial, which alleged that US courts and juries would be unable to comprehend the different standards of living accompanying the poverty of Bhopal's citizens. Through readings of Mbembe and Derrida, I discuss the question of what is human, as well as what constitutes human rights, across national and class boundaries. I contend that Animal's process of self-abjection, through frequent sexual references, vulgar language and references to bodily fluids, renders his readers abject as well. Sinha's use of profanity and the grotesque invokes readers' horror and often our laughter, thereby blurring the boundaries between us and involving us and implicating us in complex ways. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

December 2014 marked the 30th year anniversary of Bhopal gas tragedy. This sudden and accidental leakage of deadly poisonous methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas instigated research efforts to understand the nature, severity of health damage and sufferings of 570 000 ailing survivors of this tragedy. In a decade-long period, our systematic laboratory investigations coupled with long-term molecular surveillance studies have comprehensively demonstrated that the risk of developing an environmental associated aberrant disease phenotype, including cancer, involves complex interplay of genomic and epigenetic reprogramming. These findings poised us to translate this knowledge into an investigative framework of "molecular biodosimetry" in a strictly selected cohort of MIC exposed individuals. A pragmatic cancer risk-assessment strategy pursued in concert with a large-scale epidemiological study might unfold molecular underpinnings of host-susceptibility and exposureresponse relationship. The challenges are enormous, but we postulate that the study will be necessary to establish a direct initiation-promotion paradigm of environmental carcinogenesis. Given that mitochondrial retrograde signaling-induced epigenetic reprogramming is apparently linked to neoplasticity, a cutting-edge tailored approach by an expert pool of biomedical researchers will be fundamental to drive these strategies from planning to execution. Validating the epigenomic signatures will hopefully result in the development of biomarkers to better protect human lives in an overburdened ecosystem, such as India, which is continuously challenged to meet population demands. Besides, delineating the mechanistic links between MIC exposure and cancer morbidity, our investigative strategy might help to formulate suitable regulatory policies and measures to reduce the overall burden of occupational and environmental carcinogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While no industrial chemical incident has had the magnitude for loss of life that occurred in 1984 at Bhopal, process safety incidents continue to occur today often resulting in serious injuries, fatalities, environmental harm, property damage, and business interruption. Over the last three decades, we have learned that these three interrelated foundations are essential for effective process safety programs: (1) process safety culture and leadership, (2) operational discipline, and (3) process safety systems. If any one of these foundations is weak, process safety incidents will occur and the organization's process safety performance will be poor. This article explores how the process safety systems are essential barriers when reducing risks, applying the layer of protection model and the bow tie barrier analysis model into a novel visual tool that can be used to identify both the foundational gaps and the process safety systems which failed. Although the Bhopal incident is used as the case study, the objective of this article is to provide a tool for others to use when summarizing their investigations in a way that helps them visually depict the investigation's findings and helps them prioritize and address weaknesses in one or more of their process safety program foundations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A volumetric source based CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) model for estimating the wind and gravity driven spread of an elevated released dense hazardous cloud on a flat terrain without and with obstacles is demonstrated. The model considers the development of a worst-case scenario similar to that occurred at Bhopal. Fully developed clouds of a dense gas having different densities, under ABL (Atmospheric Boundary Layer) with calm ground wind conditions are first obtained. These clouds are then allowed to spread under ABL with different ground wind speeds and gravity conditions. The developed model is validated by performing the grid independent study, the fluid dynamical evidences, post-disaster facts, the downwind MIC (Methyl Isocynate) concentrations estimated by earlier models and experiments on dense plume trajectories. It is shown that in case of an active dispersion under calm wind conditions the lateral spread would prevail over the downwind spread. The presence of a dense medium behaves like a weak porous media and initiates turbulence at much smaller downwind distances than that normally would occur without the dense medium. The safety distances from toxic exposures of MIC are predicted by specifying an isosurface of a minimum concentration above the ground surface. Discrepancies in near-field predictions still exist. However, the far-field predictions agree well with data published before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accidental releases of hazardous chemicals from process facilities can cause catastrophic consequences. The Bhopal disaster resulting from a combination of inherently unsafe designs and poorly managed operations is a well-known case. Effective risk modeling approaches that provide early warnings are helpful to prevent and control such rare but catastrophic events. Probability estimation of these events is a constant challenge due to the scarcity of directly relevant data. Therefore, precursor-based methods that adopt the Bayesian theorem to update prior judgments on event probabilities using empirical data have been proposed. The updated probabilities are then integrated with consequences of varying severity to produce the risk profile. This paper proposes an operational risk assessment framework, in which a precursor-based Bayesian network approach is used for probability estimation, and loss functions are applied for consequence assessment. The estimated risk profile can be updated continuously given real-time operational data. As process facilities operate, this method integrates a failure-updating mechanism with potential consequences to generate a real-time operational risk profile. The real time risk profile is valuable in activating accident prevention and control strategies. The approach is applied to the Bhopal accident to demonstrate its applicability and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been claimed that the high accident rate in the chemical process industry is due to poor dissemination of accident knowledge that affects directly the level of learning from accidents. In response to this situation, this paper utilized past accident knowledge as a basis to develop a safety oriented design tool whereby the accident information were directly disseminated into plant design. The method was developed based on our previous accident analysis of design error in which the common design errors were ranked in accordance to their frequency and its origins during normal plant design project. Based on the design error ranking and its origin at a specific design phases, a method for design error detection is proposed. The method is expected to be able to identify the possible design error and its causes throughout chemical process development and design. The main objective is to trigger safe design thinking at the specific design phases so that appropriate action for risk reduction could be timely implemented. The Bhopal and BP Texas tragedies are used as case studies to test and verify the method. The proposed method can detect up to 74% of design errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Singapore process industry is mainly made up of chemical and energy companies such as Mitsui Chemicals, Clariant, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Sumitomo, Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore and Infineum. Majority of these companies are located on Jurong Island, southwest of Singapore. Jurong Island houses nearly 100 leading petroleum, petrochemicals and specialty chemicals companies and the total investment is about S$42 billion in total. With a land surface area of only 716 km² and a high concentration of process plants, the Singapore government places strong emphasis on safety and risk management. In this paper, four process industry veterans from the government, academic and private sectors were interviewed. Through the interviews, the authors sought to understand the veterans' perspectives on lessons that the Singapore process industry should learn from the Bhopal disaster. The veterans expanded their thoughts beyond the Bhopal disaster and provided many insights and suggestions critical to process safety management in Singapore and other countries. A systemic model of process safety management was derived from the interviews and key elements of operational process safety management were identified. In addition, a research agenda was identified based on the inputs from the veterans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliability engineering techniques such as failure mode effect analysis (FMEA), fault tree analysis (FTA), and reliability block diagrams (RBD) have been used to analyse the case of the Bhopal disaster (Labib and Champaneri, 2012), and subsequently used in the analysis of other disasters (Labib, 2014b), where it has been shown how such techniques can help in building a mental model of describing the causal effects of the disaster. The same case study of Bhopal was also investigated (Ishizaka and Labib, 2014) and a new logic gate in the fault tree method was proposed for analysing disasters and the benefits of using hybrid techniques of multiple criteria and fault analysis to evaluate and prevent disasters were demonstrated. In this paper an analysis of learning, and un-learning, from failures is carried out using a comparison between Bhopal and Fukushima, although they occurred in different industries, by comparing them we observe many similarities. This is followed by a compilation of different models based on FTA and RBD analysis of the Bhopal disaster which were an outcome of a series of workshops that were carried out to investigate the Bhopal disaster. This approach shows how the same case study can be viewed from different perspectives although the same modelling techniques were used. The paper then explores few interesting research questions such as how to evaluate different models? Do multiple models lead to better understanding of the case study? And are there any practical guidance to follow when studying root cause analysis? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1984 Bhopal tragedy involved the toxic and reactive chemical methyl isocyanate (MIC). The enormous human toll of this tragedy spurred the development of the concept of inherently safer design (ISD), and several published studies have since demonstrated the application of ISD concepts to the Bhopal process. In 2008, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) investigated a fatal explosion at a chemical plant in West Virginia, for which a potential (unrealized) outcome was the loss-of-containment of the large inventory of MIC stored onsite. The CSB asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to investigate the application of ISD concepts to the design of the West Virginia plant. The NAS study indicated that one of the primary difficulties in evaluating and choosing between ISD alternatives was the need to satisfy conflicting design objectives. The NAS panel suggested Multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) as a basis for evaluating ISD alternatives, but they did not illustrate its use in this report. Here, we illustrate the use of MAUT as a decision analysis tool for evaluating ISD alternatives, and show that the MAUT technique is an effective tool for resolving ISD conflicts. We demonstrate how to use MAUT to evaluate ISD alternatives by formulating utility functions and weights for the decision objectives. We also examine how the final ranking of alternatives varies with the weights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As amply reported, after Bhopal disaster process safety got a boost worldwide and risk analysis got applied more generally. Even if the concept of inherent safety, strongly promoted by Trevor Kletz, represents one of the main lessons from this tragedy, in the first part of the paper we focus on Bhopal mitigation measures representing the ultimate relevant layer of protection. Starting from a technical analysis of the whole safety equipment of the plant and relevant empirical evidences, we face the short-cut design of critical safety devices suitable to mitigate release effects. The applied method allows a preliminary design and management tool to evaluate the effectiveness of safety systems and the impact on surroundings. In the second part, we develop an empirical-based framework allowing to identify emergency actions and intervention time and demonstrate how the implementation of these safety measures when reaching a critical pressure of 10 psig in Thnk 610, even under the condition of protective equipment out of commission, would have surely mitigated such a high profile tragedy. The paper illustrates the determining contribution to this tragedy of such deficiencies in the safety procedures for handling abnormal situations and emergencies by the company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bhopal disaster was a gas leak incident in India, considered the world's worst industrial disaster happened around process facilities. Nowadays the process facilities in petrochemical industries have becoming increasingly large and automatic. There are many risk factors with complex relationships among them. Unfortunately, some operators have poor access to abnormal situation management experience due to the lack of knowledge. However these interdependencies are seldom accounted for in current risk and safety analyses, which also belonged to the main factor causing Bhopal tragedy. Fault propagation behavior of process system is studied in this paper, and a dynamic Bayesian network based framework for root cause reasoning is proposed to deal with abnormal situation. It will help operators to fully understand the relationships among all the risk factors, identify the causes that lead to the abnormal situations, and consider all available safety measures to cope with the situation. Examples from a case study for process facilities are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. It also provides a method to help us do things better in the future and to make sure that another such terrible accident never happens again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of integrated reporting to prevent human rights violation by multinational companies (MNCs). It offers information on the consequences of the Bhopal gas tragedy in India in 1984. It states that it is the responsibility of the state governments to ensure that MNCs are not violating human rights and working under the international human rights law and, integrated reporting supports the United Nations' new guidelines for business and human rights.

The article presents a theological reflection on the meaning of economy of life in the midst of the reign of death by focusing on the aftermath of the 1984 gas leak of a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. Topics include the continued juggernaut of free market fundamentalism in Bhopal to desecrate the sanctuaries of life on earth, the relation between economic injustice and caste and gender, and the misery of the subalterns as a result of an unjust economic order.

In the midst of concerns about diminishing political support for human rights, individuals and groups across the globe continue to invoke them in their diverse struggles against oppression and injustice. Yet both those concerned with the future of human rights and those who champion rights activism as essential to resistance, assume that human rights – as law, discourse and practices of rights claiming – can ameliorate rightlessness. In questioning this assumption, this article seeks also to reconceptualise rightlessness by engaging with contemporary discussions of disposability and social abandonment in an attempt to be attentive to forms of rightlessness co-emergent with the operations of global capital. Developing a heuristic analytics of rightlessness, it evaluates the relatively recent attempts to mobilise human rights as a frame for analysis and action in the campaigns for justice following the 3 December 1984 gas leak from Union Carbide Corporation’s (UCC) pesticide manufacturing plant in Bhopal, India. Informed by the complex effects of human rights in the amelioration of rightlessness, the article calls for reconstituting human rights as an optics of rightlessness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On December 3, 1984, a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India released approximately 40 metric tons of methyl isocyanate into the atmosphere. The impact of this incident was an estimated 2,000 fatalities, 100,000 injuries, and significant damage to livestock and crops [1]. Thirty years have passed since this event occurred but the impact of this event on the chemical processing industries and the people who work in it has not been forgotten. In remembrance of this event, I asked several well-known process safety experts that had the opportunity to visit the Bhopal site in 2004 each to write a short article that speaks to the personal impact of Bhopal on their careers in the chemical processing industries. Below are their personal and thoughtful responses to my request. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 33: 310-313, 2014 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]