Restitching Reality:

How TNCs Evade Accountability for

Industrial Disasters

Susan Dodd

York University

The first Section of this paper tells the story of how Union Carbide

protected itselfin a hostile social environment by exerting profound influence

over the construction ofpublic memory ofthe 1 984 Bhopal gas leak disaster,

its causes and its impact. 1 From this story, we can draw on the body of

academic work generated around this paradigmatic industrial disaster
2
to

identify the costly story-controlling tactics used by TNCs and their agents to

construct public memory with the strategic intent ofprotecting the corporate

person from social accountability for wrongdoing. Having drawn the char-

acteristics of what I will call "TNC accountability evasion" around the

paradigm of "Union Carbide in Bhopal" I can begin to analyze other TNC
misdeeds and accountability evasion. In Section Two, I apply this paradigm

to a Canadian industrial disaster, the sinking ofthe oil rig Ocean Ranger off

Newfoundland in 1982, ofwhich there is remarkably little academic analysis.

With reference to the paradigm of "Union Carbide in Bhopal," we can

organize the information that we do have about the behaviour of responsible

TNCs in the aftermath ofthe Ocean Ranger disaster, and thus we can begin

to retrieve post-disaster information-control dynamics as they occurred here,

in our "industrialized" or "developed" society. Finally, with the contrasts

between information control in developed nations and developingnations laid

out before us, we can begin to evaluate existing liberal-democratic tools for

curtailing anti-social behaviour by TNCs.

Focusing on the aftermath of industrial disaster provides a unique

opportunity to highlight the suffering knowingly perpetrated by transnational

corporations (TNCs), as well as to emphasize the vulnerability of public

memory to strategically constructed versions of "reality." The tragic impact

of industrial disaster—particularly the deaths and sudden injuries—propels

Alternate Routes, Volume 12, 1995

©



Alternate Routes, Volumel 2, 1995

us through legal, economic and discursive knots in search ofTNC perpetra-

tors, in hope of attaching lines of accountability to them. The suddenness and

painfulness of industrial disaster tears the fabric of dominant "reality":

communities previously living unreflectively with local TNC "development"

are confronted with the bottom line of TNC self-interest. In the disaster's

aftermath we will see that the TNC draws on all available social resources to

stitch this dominant "reality" back together, thus to hide the suffering victim.

Whereas the "malnourished body of the Third World" symbolizes the

problem of identifying perpetrators in complex postmodern power systems

(Escobar, 1 984), the obvious violence of industrial disaster, and demonstra-

ble stitch-up of dominant "reality" after the disaster, represent persisting

opportunities for drawing lines of accountability to responsible agents.

1. Union Carbide in Bhopal

The story of the Bhopal disaster exists in many forms—as many as there are

survivors and other interested agencies to tell it. The following is a generally

agreed upon account.

On the night of December 2-3, 1984 the Union Carbide India Ltd

£T% (UCIL) plant in Bhopal leaked undetermined quantities ofMethyl Isocyanate

(MIC), a chemical component ofthe pesticide SEVEN, along with other, still

unidentified gases. The poisonous gases spread over densely populated

Bhopal: "Over 200,000 local people were exposed to the toxic fumes, some

60,000 were seriously affected, more than 20,000 were permanently injured,

and as many as 1 0,000 people may have died asa direct result ofthe tragedy"

(Pearce and Tombs, 1993: 192). In addition were unmeasured destruction of

crops and livestock, and long-term pollution (Dembo et al., 1990: 86).

The impact was apocalyptic in Bhopal. As the mayor of Bhopal stated:

"1 can say that I have seen chemical warfare. Everything so quiet. Goats, cats,

wholefamilies—father, mother, children—all lying silent and still. And every

structure totally intact," (in Varma, 1986: 134). Families were fragmented in

panic, bodies were buried on bodies, plants and animals died but did not

decompose for days as even the micro-organisms ofdecay had been wiped out

(Varma, 1986: 134). The "initial trauma ofthe catastrophe" was "cosmically

frightening" and seemed to many to be "the end ofthe world," (Visvanathan,

1986: 148).

As for Union Carbide, then CEO of Union Carbide Corp of America,

Warren Anderson, flew to Bhopal and released a Carbide statement accepting



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

"moral responsibility," indicating that "restitution would be provided,"

(Behraman, 1 988: 278). Two years later, "(a)t the end of 1 986, two. . . social-

action groups applied to the Bhopal District Court to order Union Carbide

Corporation to pay interim compensation to provide for at least the minimal

survival needs ofthe victims. The company responded by denying that it had

any legal or moral responsibility for the victims' welfare ..." (Cassels, 1993:

197). In 1989, five years after accepting moral responsibility, Union

Carbide would settle with the Indian government who, acting on behalf ofthe

mass of plaintiffs, accepted a settlement of US$ 470 million. Cassels says :

Awards to the families of the deceased victims might produce,

after inflation, annual amounts of about $900 for twenty years,

with nothing left at the end of that period. Awards to those who

were permanently disabled might generate about $350 per year.

These amounts can hardly be called 'generous'... Indeed, the

income awards to individuals would likely fall short of total

average per-capita income in India, and scarcely exceeds nation-

wide individual consumption. (Cassels, 1993: 230)

The settlements are further reduced with the understanding that in India

"one wage earner may be responsible for supporting two or three genera- QP
tions," (Tyagi and Rosencranz, 1988: 1 109). This settlement was a far cry

from the three billion dollar suit the UOI had filed initially in the US, (Jaising

and Sathyamala, 1992: 108). The number of affected victims on which this

settlement was based was not supported by any systematic assessment ofthe

situation in Bhopal. Though there were 600,000 filed compensation claims,

and indications that as many as 300,000 to 400,000 victims are "suffering

from serious medically diagnosable injury today" (Jaising and Sathyamala,

1992: 1 10), Union Carbide and UOI settled on the basis of 30,000 injured

permanently, and 20,000 injuredtemporarily (Jaising and Sathyamala, 1992:

109). On top of all this, appeals and distributional complications have

plagued the actual delivery of the settlement to Union Carbide's victims

(Jasanoff, 1994).

The story-control efforts which paved the way for this settlement

demonstrate the terrible extent to which TNCs' agents are willing to go to

protect the corporate person. These efforts are far too complex to be

exhaustively represented here; however, the following is a list of staking

story-control tactics used by Union Carbide to evade social accountability for

the Bhopal disaster.



Alternate Routes, Volumel 2, 1995

Strategy First

Union Carbide acted strategically from the outset. While surviving victims

struggled with physical survival in the chaos of Bhopal, Union Carbide—as

aself-interested agent in a hostile environment—marshalled all the forces of

transnational privilege: it hired doctors, (Jaising and Sathyamala, 1992:

105), it hired a team of experienced tort defence lawyers, (Cassels, 1993:

1 24), it hired "independent" consultants to "study" the technical and opera-

tional failures leading to the gas leak (Pearce and Tombs, 1 993 : 1 94), and it

hired public relations consultants and placed a gag order on all employees

(Cassels, 1993: 113).

Union Carbide was instantly aware ofthe need to construct, or at least

profoundly problematize public memory, particularly where this memory is

refracted through expertise: medical, engineering and legal.

Making Sense out ofChaos:

The Manipulation ofDocumentary Evidence by "Company" Experts

While aspects ofUnion Carbide's tactics seem too fantasticto be strategically

useful, they effectively undid confidence in the factual validity of existing

f£P documentation, even where they could not plausibly replace it with a Carbide-

protecting version.

Medically, the magnitude of Bhopal' s suffering before and after the gas

leak made documentation extremely difficult. However, Union Carbide's

agents compounded this, refusing to release "trade secrets" about the exact

composition ofthe leaked gases (Jaising and Sathyamala, 1992: 107). Union

Carbide later used the documentary chaos around the medical facts to its legal

advantage: throughout the settlement process, Union Carbide argued that "it

was in no position to defend itself against legal claims until it was "aware

ofthe number of victims and the extent of their injuries," (Cassels, 1993:

189).

From the first, Union Carbide manipulated information about the

leaked chemicals, meaning victims did not receive potentially life-saving

treatment. Throughout the early days of the disaster, "the chief medical

officer of Union Carbide India Ltd kept telling enquiring doctors, even as

patients were dying by the hundreds, that [MIC] was merely an irritant like

tear gas, never fatal," (Varma, 1986: 1 35; cf Jaising and Sathyamala, 1992).

Hence, whereas "clinical information" immediately indicated that MIC
affected both the respiratory tract and the central nervous system, Union



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

Carbide's agents—including doctors—withheld and distorted information

about the nature ofMIC and other leaked chemicals in order to protect Union

Carbide from looming litigation.

An anti-cyanide treatment widely found to be effective in clinical use

and sanctioned by a famous German toxicologist (who had been flown in by

the Indian government) was pronounced ineffective by Union Carbide's

medical professionals and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The Indian government facilitated Union Carbide's information hegemony

by suppressing the cumulative findings of doctors treating victims in Bhopal

(Varma, 1986: 135). Consequently, the anti-cyanide treatment was banned.

The success of 'hypo' injections confirmed the presence of

cyanide, a fact that embarrassed Union Carbide officials and

some government doctors, 'hi an unusual step, the director of

health services issued an official letter banning the use of sodium

thiosulphate.' The order was withdrawn only after the evidence

became overwhelming. But many lives had been lost during the

period ofthe ban from 1 1 December to 3 February. Even now...the

availability of injections has been restricted to a trickle.

(Visvanathan, 1986: 151) ffy

It is now widely accepted that cyanide can in fact "accumulate in the

bloodstream as an indirect result ofMIC exposure," (Rosencranz et al
.
, 1 994

:

49). Morehouse and Subramaniam (1986: 41) argue further that Union

Carbide was well aware ofthe toxic nature of MIC, as it had commissioned

"confidential "research about the nature ofthe gas as early as 1 963
.
The full

and long-term effects ofMIC remain "undetermined" (Lepkowski, 1994: 22).

Union Carbide's marshalling of medical expertise was quick, and

evidently motivated by strategic accountability evasion:

Carbide sought to establish its definition of the problem through

limited administrative action and through legitimation. The lim-

ited administration included Carbide's decision on December 3 to

fly in their physician, along with medicines, oxygen, respirators,

and 120,000 rupees ($10,000), while providing treatment for

6,000 victims at the company dispensary. The legitimation of

company policy appeared as a scientific report, prepared by a

Carbide "investigation team" and released to the public in March

1985, on the "Bhopal methyl isocyanate incident." Even the name



Alternate Routes, Volume12. 1995

of the report symbolically downplayed the significance, the

damage, and thehuman sufferingthat had occurred. Thecompany

also hired "leading medical authorities here in the United States,

not otherwise associated with Union Carbide," to evaluate the

health condition of the victims. By early January, the company's

Chairman of the Board, Warren M. Anderson, was proclaiming

that "those injured by methyl isocyanate are rapidly recovering

and display little lasting effects." Reports on the scene in Bhopal

indicated otherwise. (Reich, 1994: 186)

In the crucial days when people were dying by the thousands, Union

Carbide contributed to confusion about thegases, hence about treatment. Part

of Union Carbide's initial reaction to the disaster in Bhopal was to ensure that

it had its own medical documents, and its own medical expertise to interpret

them

On the technical front, Union Carbide's "independent consultants"

effectively problematized the logs at the Bhopal plant, suggesting that they

had been fixed to hide the performance failure ofemployees, (Cassels, 1 993

:

1
1
). Despite the fact that "most ofthe world's safety engineering community

£H doubts the veracity of Carbide's sabotage evidence," (Lepkowski, 1994: 35)

these experts provided "evidence" in support of Union Carbide's remarkable

series of sabotage theories.

Scapegoating

Ofthe myriad accountability evasion techniques used by Union Carbide and

their agents, the evolving set of "sabotage theories" circulated by Union

Carbide is one ofthe most demonstrative ofTNC attempts to construct public

memory of events:

First, it had been claimed that the disaster itselfwas the result of

the actions of careless or malicious employees who had placed a

water line where a nitrogen line should have been used. The New

York Times pointed out that neither an accidental nor a deliberate

incorrect couplingwerepossible... That samedayWarren Anderson

withdrew the contention on admitting at Congressional Hearings

that he had no evidence of sabotage Then, between 3 1 July 1985

and 3 January 1 986, UCC claimed that a group of Sikh extremists

called the Black June Movement were responsible. But no such

group was ever identified in any context other than allegedly



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

putting up posters about Union Carbide... Not surprisingly, this

was also quietly abandoned. In August 1986 a specific but

unnamed employee was blamed... (Pearce and Tombs, 1993:

194)

These sabotage theories were raised by Union Carbide's lawyers throughout

litigation (Cassels, 1993). Alternately, Union Carbide would claim that the

non-

sabotage, organizational/safety failure cause of the gas leak suggested in

studies by the Indian Council of Science and Industrial Research was

"developed by reporters in search of a 'scoop,' by government officials

seeking to blame Union Carbide, and by employees seeking to escape

responsibility for their part in the disaster" (Cassels, 1993: 9).

Union Carbide's 1984 Annual Report contends that "India's cultural

backwardness was responsible for the poor maintenance and management,

poor planning procedures and the inadequate enforcement of safety regula-

tions," and that "there was a national proclivity to engage in sabotage,

political or personal, and this demonstrated national immaturity/' (para-

phrased in Pearce and Tombs, 1993: 193). We can only speculate as to how

conscious Union Carbide's public relations specialists were as they tapped £f%
into anti-Indian prejudice, and how useful this prejudice was in re-stitching

the collective conscience of shareholders and potential investors.

The sabotage theories are transparent scapegoating, intended to turn

attention away from Union Carbide's slack safety management in the Bhopal

plant. Further, the broader scapegoating of India/Indians was likely intended

to divert attention from the fact that safety management technology in the

Bhopal plant was demonstrably inferior to that of a similar plant located in

Institute, West Virginia, USA (Pearce and Tombs, 1993: 196). The

scapegoating strategy was successful at least with American "Carbiders"

—

long-time employees in towns built on Union Carbide work
—"When re-

minded of the Bhopal disaster, a Carbider always replies that the cause was

sabotage at a plant operated by Third World foreigners" (Lepkowski, 1 994:

25).

It is plausible that Union Carbide hoped to deflect the anger of victims,

dependents and an empathetic public around the world from the corporate

person, known as "Killer Carbide" onto some nebulous scapegoat As for the

alleged saboteur, he has "often publicly argued against the allegations"

(Lepkowski, 1994: 35). When finally named publicly, Union Carbide's



Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

sabotage suspect "continued to live peacefully among his alleged victims"

(Cassels, 1993: 11).

Legal Maneuvers

The story-controlling tactics discussed so far contributed to Union Carbide's

evasion of accountability through legal routes. Legal accountability evasion

was helped by the fact that whereas both the survivors themselves and the

government of India as their representatives had physical human bodies to

sustain, the TNC was concerned only with protecting itself as a legal/

financial entity.

The survivors of the gas leak emerged, after the apparent "end of the

world," to find themselves immersed in the fray of international law. "The

first legal response came from American lawyers who flew down to Bhopal

and obtained thumb impressions from the victims, authorizing the lawyers to

file suits on the victims' behalf in the US. Some of these attempts were so

crude that there were reports of authorizations being available at a price"

(Jaising and Sathyamala, 1992: 105). More than international ambulance

chasers (though the term certainly applies), these lawyers represented the

possibility of access to American tort law where plaintiffs stood the chance

ofwinning exponentially larger settlements than they might under Indian tort

law (Cassels, 1993: 126). Ultimately, the clumsy individual suits were

consolidated, and Union of India (UOI) passed the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster

(Processing of Claims) Act 1985, controversially appropriating the role of

legal agent for the mass of plaintiffs (Cassels 1993: 1 19).

Two story-control techniques formed the core of Union Carbide's

complex legal strategy. The first story-controlling technique was a denial of

liability of the parent company, Union Carbide Corporation of America

(Union Carbide, or UCC), for the torts of its subsidiary, Union Carbide of

India Limited (UCIL). The second story-controlling tactic was the claim that

Indian courts were denying UCC due process.

As for UCC's responsibility for UCIL and hence for the Bhopal plant,

Tyagi and Rosencranz list the following points that indicate "link and

control" of UCIL by UCC: UCC "consistently exercised critical control over

the establishment, structure, policy-formulation and decision-making proc-

ess;" "all decisions relating to UCIL business activities have always been

controlled by the UCC;" UCC selected and trained personnel, and retained a

50 9% majority of UCIL stock; Warren Anderson virtually said that UCC



Oodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

"was in some measure responsible for its subsidiary's gas leak;" and UCC
had "offered publicly $350 million to settle with Bhopal victims in 1986"

(Tyagi and Rosencranz, 1988: 1 108). Despite all this, Union Carbide was

able to problematize the issue of its responsibility for UCIL 3
If UCC had

managed to prove non-responsibility for UCIL conclusively, that could have

limited the potential tort recovery by victims to the $50 million in assets held

by UCIL.

Fortunately for Union Carbide, a plea by the victims/UOI to be heard

in American courts was rejected:

Simply stated, what was being argued by UCC was that the US
was an inconvenient forum in which to decide the suit, the

inference beingthat it should betried in India since all the evidence

and witnesses were located there. The hidden agenda was, quite

clearly, UCC's wish to avoid paying the levels of compensation

ordinarily awarded by US courts in tort litigation; secure in their

assumption that life in India was cheap they were confident that

an Indian court would make much lower awards. (Jaising and

Sathyamala, 1992: 106)

The court's decision offorum non com'eniens draws on quite conservative QP
liberal conceptions of'US . interest: ' "[Judge Keenan's] denial that therewas

a U.S. interest in the case seems blind to the power that U.S. companies

exercise in the developing world; and his reluctance to hear the case in the

United States, becausethat would be a form of 'imperialism, ' ignores the fact

that it was the Government of India itself urging him to accept jurisdiction"

(Cassels, 1993: 135). It is important to note that part of Judge Keenan's

explanation for this ruling was that American courts needed to be protected,

"because ofthe renowned liberality of U.S. remedies, 'the American courts,

which are already extremely attractive to foreign plaintiffs, would become

even more attractive. The flow of litigation into the United States would

increase and further congest already crowded courts'" (in Cassels, 1993:

131).

Ironically, after effectively blocking victims' access to US courts and

thus forcing the case into Indian courts, Union Carbide would consistently

campaign "to discredit the Indian legal system," claiming that it was being

denied "due process" throughout the attempts of Indian courts to respond to

the unusual demands of the case—like the provision of interim relief to the

victims in Bhopal (Cassels, 1993: 187).



G

Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

Restructuring

Will Lepkowski descnbes Union Carbide as a "shamed but staunch"

corporation (Lepkowski, 1994: 24). Though Union Carbide is now less than

a sixth the size it was before Bhopal (Lepkowski, 1994: 25), it is far from clear

that this shrinkage is the result ofany punitive action, much less that it reflects

a market disinclination to reward unethical corporate behaviour. Admittedly,

Union Carbide stock dropped dramatically from $60 to $30 per share in 1 984

(Lepkowski, 1 994: 28). However, the causes of this drop are unclear. Union

Carbide resisted a hostile takeover attempt, divesting itselfofsome ofits most

profitable businesses (Lepkowski, 1994: 29). As one analyst notes: "Thecost

of compensating the victims of Bhopal pales compared with the debts

incurred in fighting the takeover, the legal and banking fees and golden

parachutes" (inLepkowski, 1994: 29). Yet another analyst says: "Clearly, by

any objective measure ... UCC and its managers benefitted from the Bhopal

incident, as did UCIL. They were politically able to close a burdensome plant,

take aggressive actions to restructure both companies, and enhance manage-

ment benefits... It is ironic that a disaster such as Bhopal [would] leave its

victims devastated and other corporate stakeholders better ofF' (in Lepkowski

,

1994: 30). Finally, Ward Morehouse comments: "It is naive to think that

Carbide's ... stock buy-back and divestment maneuvers were motivated

solely by its defense against the takeover. Just by coincidence, these steps also

placed a significant proportion of Carbide's assets beyond the reach of

victims of that disaster, and effectively immunized the company against a

consumer boycott" (in Lepkowski, 1 994: 30). Ultimately, an Indian court had

to order Union Carbide to maintain $3 billion in assets, "a sum equal to the

size ofthe Indian government's damage claim against Carbide," (Lepkowski,

1994: 30) When the "settlement" of US$ 470 million was announced, "the

price of [Union Carbide's] shares on the New York stock market rose by $2"

(Cassels, 1993: 224).

Manipulation ofState Governments

The goal of alleviating poverty by attracting TNC-provided development

leads state governments into the heart of risk society's contradictions. As

Pearce and Tombs note: "It is questionable whether it was possible for UCIL
both to make pesticides safely nnd to sell these pesticides at a profit In the

event that they could not do so, either the company could have engaged in safe

uneconomic' production, or it could have produced less safely but more



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

economically," (Pearce and Tombs, 1993: 200). Had the Indian government

forced Union Carbide to comply with reasonable standards of safety, they

would have faced the 'threat of capital flight.' Furthermore, state govern-

ments often lack the technological know-how to enable them to monitor the

production hazards ofTNCs (Cassels, 1 993 : 30), and where the state is a part

owner in an enterprise, as the Indian government was with UCIL, the

government is in the contradictory position of regulating itself (Cassels,

1993: 38).

In the aftermath of Bhopal, Union Carbide would strategically refer to

India's regulations requiring a certain percentage of Indian-held shares, and

India's incentives to produce fertilizers and pesticides for the so-called

"Green revolution" as having forced UCIL to produce dangerous chemicals

in Bhopal (Pearce and Tombs, 1993: 200-201; Cassels, 1993: 34).

Union Carbide in Bhopal:

The Myth ofthe Chastened Corporate Person

The words "Union Carbide in Bhopal" conjure up quite different meanings

for different readers. A Canadian pro-business ethics article, which makes no

other reference to either Union Carbide or the Bhopal gas leak, begins: ^^
"Cynics who stubbornly hold that ethics don't effect the bottom line would

do well to consider these four words: Union Carbide in Bhopal" (McCallum,

1994: 21). McCallum is confident that "Union Carbide in Bhopal" resonates

with the dire financial consequences awaiting unethical businesses. With

these four words we are assured that unethical business is unviable business

.

On the other hand, Jaising and Sathyamala write, "It is almost as ifthey have

succeeded in erasing the event from human memory and public conscious-

ness" (Jaising and Sathyamala, 1992: 103). These versions ofpublic memory

of "Union Carbide in Bhopal" contradict each other yet co-exist quite easily:

"Union Carbide in Bhopal" resonates with the false assurance that TNC
irresponsibility is punished, wrongs are righted, and TNCs are chastened into

more ethical behaviour by the economic consequences of disaster

Such false assurance depends on our collective forgetfulness of human

suffering and TNC accountability evasion. Against this collective forgetful-

ness, and as a direct result of story control efforts by Union Carbide, a

counter-discourse arose from medical non-governmental organizations

(NGOs) as they raced, with incomplete knowledge, to treat the dying and

injured. NGOs like the Morcha and the Medico-Friends Circle (MFC) stood



o

Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

"between the muteness of the victim and the propaganda of the State"

(Visvanathan, 1986: 155). Medical NGOs focused on meeting the medical

needs ofvictims as the full impact ofMIC on human beings became apparent.

Given the story control efforts of Union Carbide in tandem with the Indian

government, medicine-focused NGOs were forced into political activism.

Whereas the MFC sought to reconcile victim experience with formal medical

science, the Morcha mixed medicine and politics, becoming increasingly

militant, and ultimately providing up to 220 ofthe controversial anti-cyanide

injections a day. "IfMFC represented the power of voluntarism as 'counter-

expertise,' the Morcha added to it the dimension of political protest"

(Visvanathan, 1986: 158). On June 24, 1984, the government brutally

"raided" a Morcha rally, beating many activists. With many medical

professionals frightened offby the violence and a subsequent raid on a clinic

that had been set up on Union Carbide property, "voluntary work, especially

relief in Bhopal, [was] literally at a standstill" (Visvanathan, 1986: 160).

Visvanathan is scathing in her condemnation of responses by trade

unions and opposition political parties. She holds that all such groups showed

themselves to be "caught in the grid of modernity, which sees industrialism

as good and inevitable," and consequently "saw the victim as an embarrass-

ment" (Visvanathan, 1986: 163). Besides initial disorientation by apoca-

lypse, victims were poor and many experienced a "sense of psychological

squalor" (Visvanathan, 1986: 151). Thus, the consolidation of local voices

following the Bhopal disaster depended on NGO facilitators. Visvanathan

argues:

The voluntary organizations had to substitute for [unions and

opposition political parties]. Voluntarism in this context has a

double responsibility. It has to redeem, not only the traditional

idiom of power, but also the repressive nature of modern knowl-

edge. As mediator between the state and its people, it is not only

the refractor of power, but the proponent of an alternative

ecology ofknow/edge. In Bhopal it was not only the victims—as

politically defeated people-

-that they had to protect but also their voice, their memory, their

right to then own vernacular of pain and distress. (Visvanathan,

1
c>86: 163—my emphasis)



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

Facilitators, and medical professionals in particular, worked to protect

the "alternative ecology of knowledge" formed at the site of TNC ir/

responsibility—the bodies of the victims—from being stitched out of sight

during dominant "reality's" rehabilitation.

To believe that "Union Carbide in Bhopal" represents an agency

profoundly chastened byfinancial retribution for wrongdoing is to wilfully

ignore the possibility that Union Carbide benefited financially from the

disaster, or at most, suffered a negligible loss. (Union Carbide continues to

rank as one of Fortune's 500 American Corporations). What is more, to

believe that any financial retribution could settle the account represented by

"Union Carbide in Bhopal" is to forget the human suffering inflicted in

Bhopal—suffering that was perpetrated by Union Carbide's management

failures and/or waning interest—suffering that was intensified and pro-

longed by Union Carbide 's active efforts to evade social accountability.

TNC Accountability Evasion

As I have indicated, industrial disasters tear dominant "reality," openinga rift

in public complacency about a TNC 's relationship with society. With the first

indication oflarge scale death by industry, the stitch-up ofdominant "reality" gfa
begins. Survivors, dependents of victims, political officials all assume the

priority of their version of events. This assumption strengthens an estab-

lished, pre-disaster power imbalance by weakening the positions of victims

and their representatives while strengthening the TNCs. ' "Union Carbide in

Bhopal" demonstrates the following tactics available to TNCs in their

attempt to evade accountability in the aftermath of an industrial disaster:

1) Immediate strategic response: The TNC begins story-controlling

tactics immediately, at a time when victims are still focused on surviving

—

whether physically or emotionally. As a self-interested agent, the TNC is

immediately conscious that it needs to manipulate the construction of public

memory of the event to protect itself from financial impact. Survivors take

time, on the other hand, before they can see the lives/deaths of their family

members in financial terms; they must also learn to see the TNC, with whom
they have co-habitated peacefully up until the disaster, as a self-interested

opponent in the adversarial legal "settlement" process.

2) Problematize documentary evidence: The TNC hires sources of

alternative expert "knowledge" to construct documentary versions of the

disaster and its consequences that can either replace or at least profoundly



Alternate Routes, Volume 1 2, 1995

challenge the documents put together by government or advocacy agencies.

The focus of such TNC-
sponsored documentary expertise is technological areas, that is, areas

which defy common sense: medicine, engineering, financing, and statistical

analysis.

3) Scapegoat: The TNC blames in conformity with prevailing social

prejudices, in an attempt to shift the focus of blame off itself and its agents.

4) Legal maneuvers: The first three accountability evasion activities

contribute to the TNC's capability to evade accountability in legal form.

"Union Carbide in Bhopal" is clear evidence that existing structures present

un-met promises, rather than clear routes to compensation, punitive meas-

ures, and improved safety.

5) Manipulate state governments: Perhaps the trump card of

transnational accountability evasion, TNCs can threaten to leave, taking

jobs and economic, technological, and broader social benefits with them. This

"threat of capital flight" places state governments in a terrible bind, even in

the attempt to develop reasonable safety regulations (and then enforce them)

in the wake of the disaster. Further, TNCs can blame state governments for

investment and/or development restrictions that stipulate levels of domestic

involvement in industrial production/ownership. Also, the technological

complexity of TNC operations can conspire with joint ownerships—TNC
with state government—to leave the government not only regulating a

technological process that it lacks the cutting-edge expertise to understand,

but also one in which it is a financial partner.

6) Restructure. The TNC immediately shuffles its resources to ensure

it is protected from traditional punitive measures: it can sell off profitable

businesses, and also sell subsidiaries which make consumer products so that

brand-identified boycotts become impossible. Without brand-identification,

it's impossible to know where a particular TNC's product is integrated into

the consumer products of other corporations. Also, they can ensure that any

risky activities of enterprise are segregated in smaller corporations which

may be protected by the coiporate veil—thus shielding assets from claims in

future accidents (Hansmann, 1991).

7) Replace local experience with transnational myth: TNCs can take

advantage of the tendency of public attention to turn from events like

industrial disasterwithout foilowing through to compensation or punishment

of culprits Three major objectives of victims and dependents arise in the

aftermath of disaster: to recover lost income (ie. to replace those material



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

resources destroyed by the disaster), to minimize ongoing/future risk by

improving safety practices, and to achieve palpable punitive measures

against TNCs. These are either defeated or drastically curtailed by TNC
accountability evasion. For a time, however, local memory resists the stitch-

up of dominant "reality," as grassroots movements form to articulate the

victims' needs and demands. These alternative discourses attempt to

legitimize the victims' version, and thus to challenge TNC hegemony; they

only gain comprehensive voice once international haggling over the price of

local bodies is well under way. Even though grassroots demands are defeated

or profoundly curtailed by the TNC and state governments, the stitching of

dominant "reality" remains visible—some local memories of TNCs as

unpunished culprits linger.

Warren Anderson accepted moral responsibility in the glare of the

international media, then subsequently sanctioned the use of every tactic

mentioned above to limit the financial impact on the corporate person, Union

Carbide. There are still calls in Bhopal for Anderson to be prosecuted on

criminal charges.

2. TNC Accountability Evasion in Canada:

The sinking of the Ocean Ranger

There is an extensive body of literature analysing the social and organiza-

tional contradictions which led to the Bhopal gas leak, and these have been

drawn together by Paul Shrivastava to define the "anatomy" of industrial

disasters or "crises" (Shrivastava, 1987; 1992; 1994a:b). This "anatomy" of

industrial disaster is now widely used to analyze other situations where

industrial disasters cause major damage to human life and social/natural

environments. Now, however, I want to extend the paradigm to cover what

we have been calling the "accountability evasion" of responsible TNCs. For

our purposes, this model of TNC accountability evasion provides a frame-

work for organizingthe fragmented, anecdotal information we have about the

aftermath of a Canadian industrial disaster—the sinking ofthe oil rig Ocean

Ranger. Referring to the tactics ofTNC accountability evasion identified in

Section l,wecan: framethe information that has already been collected about

the aftermath of the Ocean Ranger disaster, we can identify areas where

information may be submerged in the privacy ofthe out-of-court settlements

and/or not yet collected, and we can begin to isolate tactics used by Union

Carbide in Bhopal that were not used in the Ocean Ranger aftermath with a

©



Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

view to understanding TNC behaviour as a strategic, essentially defensive

reaction to environments.

St. John 's Newfoundland, the Sinking ofthe Ocean Ranger

On February 15, 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off Newfoundland in

a winter storm. All 84 workers died. Of the 69 Canadians killed, 56 were

Newfoundland residents. The crew abandoned the rig and died either while

launching the lifeboats or when the lifeboats sank or capsized (Royal

Commission on the Ocean Ranger Marine Disaster, 1984: 122). Autopsies

on the 22 recovered bodies revealed that all these men had drowned while in

a hypothermic state. The rig itself is believed to have capsized and sunk

roughly two hours after it was abandoned. A US Coast Guard Report, a US

National Transportation Safety Board Report, and the Canadian joint

federal-provincial Royal Commission on the Ocean Ranger Marine Disaster

(Royal Commission, 1984) all indicate that responsibility rests with Ocean

Drilling and Exploration Corporation (ODECO)—a subsidiary of Murphy

Oil Coiporation—and with Mobil Oil of Canada Ltd (MOCAN). At the time

ofthe Ocean Ranger's sinking, "ODECO was responsible for the rig and the

crewandMobil was responsible for the well" (Royal Commission, 1984: vii).

However, as the Royal Commission established, Mobil's senior drilling

personnel had effective authority over ODECO's marine "Master"—the

Ocean Ranger was seen by both TNCs and federal and provincial govern-

ments as a drilling platform first and foremost (Royal Commission, 1984:

37). ODECO/MOCAN responsibility derives from their failure to train crew

members in basic systems operations; the absence of a chain of command

defining marine decision-makers from drilling decision-makers; and the

absence/disrepair/worker-ignorance of available safety technologies

(Campbell and Dodd, 1993; O'Neill, 1984; Royal Commission, 1984).

On the evening of February 1 4, an unusually high wave struck the "leg"

ofthe rig which housed the ballast control room. A glass portlight broke and

seawater doused the electronic panel which controlled the rig's stability. No
one on the rig understood the ballast system well enough to appreciate the

gravity ofthe problem The ballast control operators' attempts to control the

system manually—without either adequatetraming or an operations manual

—

led to the sinking (Royal Commission, 1984: 90-99) '

Little academic analysis has been done of either the organizational

failures that led to the Ocean Ranger disaster, or its social impact. Brian



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

O'Neill drives home the inaction of Canadian politicians at both federal and

provincial levels, and more distressing, the capability of politicians to

distance themselves from the fact there were no Canadian safety regulations

specific to offshore drilling operations prior to the Ocean Ranger's sinking.

Furthermore, the American Coast Guard regulations that did exist were not

enforced (O'Neill, 1984; cf Royal Commission, 1984: 48). Douglas House

(1985) presents a comprehensive account of the difficulties facing labour

organizers attemptingto break into the offshore workforce, andtheprovincial

and federal governments' failure to act soon enough to avert disaster with

adequate regulation and enforcement. House also facilitated the collection of

accounts ofthe mourning and coping experiences of Ocean Ranger families,

(House 1987). Ray Hawco outlines the coordinated efforts to assist families

through mourning, the terrible pressures on corporate employees responsible

for informing families and identifying bodies, and he argues for the need for

on-shore response plans to industrial disaster (Hawco, 1992). And, in the

precursor to this article, Mary Campbell and I raise the question of the

contradictory promises and outcomes of the so-called "settlement" process

that Ocean Ranger families went through with MOCAN-ODECO (Campbell

and Dodd, 1993; Dodd, 1993).

However, there remains a disturbing lack ofanalysis ofTNC behaviour

in the aftermath of this disaster, and there is almost no public discussion of

the fact that neither Mobil nor ODECO suffered punitive action for the

negligence which cost 84 lives. All families of these 84 men settled out-of-

court. Although the settlements are private, sources indicate that most

families settled for around $45,000 for single men with no dependents, and

between $300,000 and up to $1 million for married men with children. In

total, thegroup offamilies known as the Ocean Ranger Claimants Committee

settled with Mobil Oil and ODECO for about $20 million (O'Neill, 1985).

O'Neill speculated in 1986: "ODECO may have to pay out as much as $100

million or more in legal suits and fees, a figure approximating the cost of a

new drilling rig (the Ocean Ranger ... was insured). Mobil's legal expenses

will likely be much smaller." Furthermore, it is unclear how much ODECO
recovered (ifanything) from suits it launched against other corporations—the

lifeboat manufacturers, and the insurance company for the catering company

on the Ocean Ranger (Oil Week, April 4 1983: 6).



Alternate Routes, Volume 1 2, 1995

Strategy First

The aftermath for Ocean Ranger families began with their notification that

the rig was in trouble and the men had gone to the lifeboats. Because many

of the men were employed by companies who subcontracted to Mobil, the

initial contact varied greatly. In some cases, company notification of events

came after media broadcasts ofthe same information. Margaret Blackmore,

whose husband was a Medic/Radio Officer on the Ocean Ranger, says: "...I

called ODECO. Theytoldme: 'Wedon'tknowwhat'sgoingonoutthere,but

we'll let you know. ' Thatwas the last I heard until I heard—on Canada AM

—

that the rig had sunk. The next time ODECO contacted me was one day

—

sometime around the funeral—when two men came out to see me with a

cheque" (Dodd, 1 992). Given that ODECO is described by the Economist as

'"one of the most experienced offshore rig designers and operators in the

world,"' (Dodd, 1993) it is highly probable that this response was strategic

rather than disorganized. Shortly after the Ocean Ranger's mayday call

reached St John's we may assume that legal and technical-informational

resources were being gathered at ODECO's head office in New Orleans.

Problematizing Documentary Evidence

The Royal Commission Report provides some hints as to whereODECO was

most interested in the Commissioners' public report. Various points in the

Commissioners' account of events are interrupted by interjections—into the

text-

-of an alternative possible course of events by the "Counsel for ODECO."
These tend to be points at which human error and technical failures overlap,

particularly in matters concerning the broken portlight, how much water

came into the ballast control room when the portlight broke, and what effect

the seawater had on the ballast control panel (Royal Commission, 1984:

61,62,91,95) ODECO's counsel asserts that the portlight must have been

broken by debris, rather than by sheer water pressure, that the water which

entered the ballast control room and covered the control panel did not cause

switches to short circuit, and that, ultimately, human error—from the failure

to close the cover on the portlight given the bad weather, to the use of the

manual ballast control option—was the cause of the Ocean Ranger's fatal

loss of stability However, the Royal Commission explains: "It is difficult to

accept the argument by ODECO counsel that the ballast control operator

would insert the manual control rods as a precautionary measure ifthe ballast



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

control console was operating normally. The operators on board had never

used the rods..." (Royal Commission, 1984: 96). It would appear that

ODECO's counsel was trying to deflect attention away from flaws in the rig

they had designed and their failure to train their personnel, and toward a

failure of "common sense" in their untrained ballast control workers. The

Royal Commission states a clear opinion on the interconnection of techno-

logical failure and human error:

Each event and action which contributed to the loss ofthe Ocean

Ranger was either the result of design deficiencies or was crew-

initiated . The disaster could have been avoided by relatively minor

modifications to the design ofthe rig and its systems and it should

in any event, have been prevented by competent and informed

action by those on board. Because ofinadequate training and lack

ofmanuals and technical information, the crew failed to interrupt

the fatal chain ofevents which led to the eventual loss ofthe Ocean

Ranger. It is, nevertheless, the essence of good design to reduce

the possibility ofhuman error and ofgood management to ensure

that employees receive training adequate to their responsibilities.

(Royal Commission, 1984: 99) 4ft

Because crew members inaccurately assessed the situation resulting from the

seawater's coverage of the ballast control panel, little documentation or

formal reporting of its failure was made. Hence, "conclusions regarding

theeffect ofthe water on the equipment in the ballast control room are drawn

from VHF radio conversations overheard [by crewmembers on nearby

vessels]," as well as from evidence recovered from the sunken rig (Royal

Commission, 1984: 89). The weakness of the documentary evidence about

the technical failures of the ballast system permitted ODECO's counsel to

interrupt the Commissioners' narrativewhich might otherwise have drawn an

incontrovertible causal line between design flaws and the loss ofthe rig. Once

itwas suggested publicly thathuman errorwas responsible for the lost control

ofthe ballast system, there was nothing to impede the unreflective attribution

of the disaster to the ferocity of February's North Atlantic, obscuring

ODECO's and Mobil's failure to provide standard safety equipment and to

train its employees in their use.

Both ODECO and Mobil had histories of manipulating records/

certifications on the Ocean Ranger. Ballast control procedure was to "fabri-

cate" records about the tension of anchor chains (Royal Commission, 1984:



Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

47). At thetimethe rig and crew were lost, ODECO still had not met the safety

standards stipulated when it received its Certificate ofInspection from the US
Coast Guard in 1979 (Royal Commission, 1984: 2 2). 'Furthermore, the crew

had resisted reporting—to either Mobil onshore authorities or appropriate

government authorities—a serious incident on February 6, 1982, involving

ballast control when the men had been called to the lifeboat stations (Royal

Commission, 1 984: 5 1 ). This incident clearly indicated that the "master" of

the rig did not know how to use the ballast system—not surprising, in that it

was his first shift out after having been land-based for the ten years previous

(Royal Commission 1984: 50). Mobil's most authoritative worker on the

Ocean Ranger and ODECO's shore-based Superintendent "had lost confi-

dence" in the master, but did not move to replace him. Hence, the Royal

Commission suggests that "the master was only on board in order to comply

with US Coast Guard Regulations" (Royal Commission, 1984: 50).

Scapegoating

If the oil companies anticipated further government subsidized involvement

in the Newfoundland offshore, then neither Mobil Oil nor ODECO/Murphy

£?* Oil could afford a nasty public battle ofscapegoating. Whereas in the Bhopal

disaster Union Carbide was unabashed about public litigation, the TNCs
involved in the Ocean Ranger case had much more to lose by entering into a

public legal case with the widows and parents oftheir victims: Mobil Oil and

Murphy Oil, the parent company of ODECO, are now shareholders in the

Hibernia oil project off Newfoundland (Globe andMail, March 26, 1993 p.

B6; O'Neill 1984,6). Thus, we can speculate that TNC will to settle was

relatively strong in the Ocean Ranger case.

Also useful to Mobil and ODECO might be the fact that since 1977

Newfoundland had a local hiring policy for the offshore (House, 1 985: 1 5).

The Royal Commission Report contains an indication that ODECO agents

attempted to shift blame onto the failure of Canadian regulations and the

failure to have American marine certifications:

ODECO's stated operating policy was to ensure that an adequate

number of its industrial crew would hold the marine licences

required by the US Coast Guard. In fact only one employee, the

ngmechanic, had marine certification . The operations manager of

ODECO based in St. John's testified that he relied upon the master

to ensure that the US Coast Guard manning requirements were



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

met. He stated that maintaining the required number of marine

crew was complicated by the high percentage of Canadians on

board because Canadian marine certification was not accepted by

the US Coast Guard. No evidence was given, however, as to the

number of Canadians with marine certification. In fact Canadian

regulations did not require marine training or certificates for crew

members employed on rigsoperating offshore. The explanation

given by ODECO's operations manager, who was responsible for

selecting and hiring all new employees, was not persuasive.

(Royal Commission, 1984: 38)

The decision to operate the Ocean Ranger with untrained ballast control

operators and without qualified lifeboat operators reflects Mobil-ODECO's

drilling focus which omitted safety concerns relevant to the rig's marine

environment. Mobile-ODECO reference to Canadian local preference In ring

policyand lack ofCanadian Marine regulation is a subleform ofscapegoating

intended to compliment the scapegoating of the ballast conrtol operators

themselves.

Legal Tactics £$%

By February 20, 1 982 the legal ramifications ofthe disaster were becoming

public in St John's, as the Evening Telegram reported:

The legal outlook is entangled in the multinational nature of the

offshore drilling operations, the fact that the victims were em-

ployed by a dozen different companies, uncertainties in US and

Canadian law, and even the constitutional dispute between Ot-

tawa and Newfoundland about jurisdiction over the continental

shelf where the rig went down.

Both American "ambulance chasers" and "company" lawyers moved quickly.

a lawyer who worked for Mobil remembers, "You could pick out the lawyers

from New Orleans on the streets by what they weren 7 wearing. They had no

notion of winter—with summer weight shoes and light top coats" (Dodd,

1992). Some American law firms sent "point men" to scout potential toit

claimants for clients. Some families approached by American lawyers were

appalled by what they saw as mercenary tactics and engaged local lawyers

—

settling before any ofthe enquiries had been conducted (Campbell and Dodd,

1993). Most families, however, joined the "Ocean Ranger Claimants'



o

Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

Committee," and were represented by St. John's lawyers who consulted

American lawyers. Most families stayed in Canada, accepting settlements

roughly double Canadian precedents. However, two families, each ofwhom

had lost a son, split with the Claimants' Committee, persuaded by Texas

lawyer Benton Musslewhitethat pursuit ofODECO into American jurisdic-

tion might be successful. Though they did not ultimately win American

jurisdiction, they did settle with ODECO in the US, winning some ten times

the settlements of comparable cases settled in Canada. The story of these

settlements contains astonishing parallels to the Bhopal litigation—in fact,

Benton Musslewhite would also take part in the Bhopal litigation (Evening

Telegram, May 15, 1986). Also, of course, were the questions of American

parent responsibility for subsidiaries and "American interest" relevant to

winningjurisdictionin US courts. As in the Bhopal case, the issue of relative

dollar values for lives arose as claimants from Canadian families sought

"compensation" equal to that awarded to American families for their loss

(Evening Telegram, July 14, 1984).

Because the Ocean Ranger settlements were all made out-of-court, the

negotiations are not immediately accessible. However, discussions with

lawyers and plaintiffs indicate that the assignment of negligence seems to

have been the least contentious part ofthe Ocean Ranger settlement process.

ODECO does not seem to have vigorously opposed the Claimants' case that

it was negligent because ofthe rig's design. The most difficult legal issues for

the settlements were: to what extent would the Claimants' case be restricted

by the no-fault provisions of Newfoundland's Workers' Compensation

scheme; and ifWorkers' Compensation permitted suits, where should they be

heard—in the US, home ofthe responsible parent TNCs, or Canada, the home

of the majority of victims and subsidiary companies? Newfoundland's

Workers' Compensation Act was amended, giving the Board the discretion

to permit tort action against an employer even as it providedcompensation to

the employee/dependents. In the event of a successful action, the compensa-

tion was to be repaid, although the Board also had the option to "release its

claim" on the money (Newfoundland Workers Compensation Act, Chapter

W-l 1, Part IV) These are, I believe, provisions that were made to support

Ocean Ranger families as they waited out their tort action suits against

ODECO and Mobil



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

Restructuring

This particular accountability evasion technique was not necessary for the

TNCs' survival after the sinking of the Ocean Ranger. Responsible TNCs
must have recognized very quickly that the settlements could not be a threat

to the integrity of the corporate person, as they might have been for Union

Carbide—and certainly were for UCIL. However, ODECO seems to have

disappeared from the Newfoundland oil industry, though its parent company

Murphy Oil remains: Murphy Oil purchased 6.5% of the shares in the

Hibemia oil development project that were "shed" by Gulf in 1 993 . Mobil's

share in Hibemia increased to 33. 125% (Globe and Mail, March 26, 1993:

B6).

Manipulation ofState Governments

The unemployment situation in Newfoundland hardly makes for a receptive

audience for critics ofthe few TNCs bringingjobs and money to the province.

As O'Neill notes: "as much as $4 billion (in 1982 dollars) had been spent on

East Coast offshore exploration by the time of the Ocean Ranger disaster.

Roughly 80% ofthis amount—over $3 billion—was provided by Canadian

taxpayers in the forms of tax allowances and outright grants to the oil

industry" (O'Neill, 1984: 6). The level of government complicity with the

TNCs in stitching up dominant "reality" in the wake of the Ocean Ranger

disaster cannot be dealt with here. However, it is worth noting that when

pressed by an NDP Member to indicate whether criminal action would be

taken as a result ofthe Ocean Ranger disaster, Marc Lalonde, then Minister

of Energy, Mines and Resources, responded that "Ifthere is critical liability

or criminal liability which might be involved, I assume mat this will be the

subject of the conclusion by that commission of inquiry" (Hansard, Com-

mons Debates Feb 16 1982: 15044). There is no indication mat the Royal

Commission was exploring possible criminal responsibility; rather, the

Royal Commission Inquiry appears to have been a forum for providing

ODECO and Mobil with "their day in court" without any punitive possibili-

ties.

Local Experience is Overwhelmed by Transnational Myth

Against the forgetfulness that facilitates TNC accountability evasion, a

group of family members and NGO facilitators, called the Ocean Ranger

Foundation, struggled to sustain the alternative ecology of knowledge



Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

belonging to the families. Initially acting as a support group and an

information resource, the "Foundation" ultimately became a lobby group

pushing for the implementation of the Recommendations of the Royal

Commission until its provincial -federal funding was cut in 1985. One clear

legacy of the Ocean Ranger disaster is that the Canada-Newfoundland

Offshore Petroleum Board, which is responsible for ensuring industry

compliance with Canadian regulations, includes an extensive presentation on

the causes and regulatory responses to the Ocean Ranger's sinking in safety

presentations conducted regularly with industry workers (Cook, 1995).

However, despite the efforts ofthe Foundation, in some ways the story ofthe

Ocean Ranger has disappeared as effectively as the rig itself. CleNewhook

—

former executive director ofthe Ocean Ranger Foundation—remembers that

the press information package that was distributed at the signing and

celebration ofthe 1985 Hibemia development deal between Newfoundland,

Canada, Mobil, and other oil transnationals, contained a history of the

offshore oil industry in Newfoundland-

-in which there was absolutely no mention ofthe Ocean Ranger, or the 84 men

whowere lost with it. On the tenth anniversary of the sinking of the Ocean

Ranger, Newhook said: "For all intents and purposes the Ocean Ranger has

faded to the back of public and corporate memory" {Globe and Mail,

February 15, 1992). On the other hand, one of the mothers who pursued

ODECO in attempts to win US jurisdiction says: "When the press calls me

on the anniversary to ask how I feel, I say, 'Rotten.' I feel rotten ten years

after, I'll feel rotten 20 and 30 and 40 years after" (in Campbell and Dodd,

1993). A widow says of the TNCs: "They were negligent, that's clear. But

they haven't been hurt, and really, they probably haven't changed. When
there's money to be made, nothing matters, not safety, not environment,

nothing Money is important, I know, but so are other things" (in Campbell

and Dodd, 1993).

Although accident and fatality rates are higher in the offshore petroleum

industry than in other comparable industries, House explains that TNCs build

on the following myth in response to the question, "What causes a higher

accident rate offshore?":

The offshore oil industry is portrayed as a romantic battle against

the elements, a new and exciting chapter in mankind's struggle for

the mastery ofnature. Personal risks to life and limb are presented

as an integral part of this struggle, as the unfortunate but



Oodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

necessary price that has to be paid for continued industrial

progress. Such a view pervades the thinking of governments, the

media, the general public, and even offshore workers themselves.

It is, however, specious and does not stand up to empirical

investigation. (House, 1985: 31-32)

The marine nature ofthe Ocean Ranger disaster saved the TNCs much work

in stitching dominant reality: coastal provinces like Newfoundland have long

histories ofmarine death and there is a strong tendency to see death at sea as

something to be borne as gracefully as possible—not questioned closely or

attributed to negligence. This may explain something of the shift in broader

social attitudes toward the widows and parents of Ocean Ranger victims

duringthe "settlement" process. Initially, public opinion was fully empathetic

with the families. However, as the settlement negotiations and Royal Com-

mission "dragged on," the women I spoke with became increasingly sensible

of broad social perceptions that they were "making money off the backs" of

their dead sons/husbands, or that they were chasing after "blood money"

(Dodd, 1992; cf House, 1987; Campbell and Dodd, 1993). Although they

generally agree that the "compensatory" function of their settlement was

met—in so far as it served to "replace lost income" (excluding any calculus gfo
of pain, suffering or loss of life)—all agree that the punitive promise of tort

law was not met. This is true even—perhaps especially—of the two women

who pursued ODECO into the US. Of the small sample of families I spoke

with, most felt that there is an exaggerated local perception ofthe size oftheir

settlements. When these last two families settled, the headline in the Evening

Telegram was: "Going to U.S. courts has paid off for two Newfoundland

families who sought compensation for sons lost in the loss of the Ocean

Ranger drill rig four years ago..." (Evening Telegram, May 15 1986). This

headline blatantly ignores thepunitive intent ofthe family ' s tort pursuit to the

US, and contributes to the broader social conception ofthese families acting

out of pecuniary motives. It also misses the relative insignificance of the

settlements for the TNCs in question (cf Dodd, 1993).

However real the suffering of ODECO employees of Newfoundland

who lost co-

workers and friends, (cfHawco, 1 982) as 'one ofthe most experienced

offshore rig designers and operators in the world' ODECO had institutional

knowledge of all the safety technologies available and in use in the North Sea,

as well as theprobability of loss of life on a drilling rig. Precisely because



Alternate Routes, Volumel2. 1995

TNCs are essentially legal and financial beings, they can be expected to

remember certain costs of industry—Mobile and ODECO were certainly

aware of the financial impact of the loss of lives in the North Sea drilling

industry and in the Gulf of Mexico before the Ocean Ranger loss.

3. Limiting TNC Accountability Evasion:

Disciplining the Corporate Person

TNC accountability evasion following the Ocean Ranger disaster was far

more subtle than that which followed the Bhopal gas leak. In large measure,

this can be attributed to the three inquiries by government agencies which

institutionalized consistent accounts of the Ocean Ranger disaster and thus

limited the information control opportunities available to the TNCs. Though

some TNC strategies are common to both "developed" and "developing"

hemispheres, the economic disadvantage of Southern "developing" states

vastly increases their susceptibility to victimization through industrial disas-

ter and its aftermath (Pearce, 1993; Cassels, 1993; Shnvastava, 1994b). In

a sense, the dramatically different cultural and economic environments in

which the Bhopal and the Ocean Ranger disasters occurred make the

structural parallels all the more striking. As well, the contrasts in TNC
response in these two cases demonstrate the strategic nature ofTNCs as self-

conscious agents adapting to their environments.

A TNC is a "corporate person," with its own narrative life-story and its

own primary instinct for self-preservation. Accountability evasion exercises

the flexible, reactive capability ofTNCs to organize information in a strong

sense of defining and articulating what is legitimate, to the exclusion ofwhat

is not (Douglas, 1986: 47). Accountability evasion protects the corporate

person on two fronts, legal and investor/worker: legally the corporate person

needs to control public memory of events to minimize impact on its financial

body, and the corporate person needs to control public memory also to protect

itself as an institution, hence against loss of investor/worker complacency

within the TNCs social environment. As our outline of accountability

evasion tactics show, TNCs stitch dominant "reality" together over the

suffering bodies oftheir victims by profoundly influencing social memory. A
TNC is able to refer to the "naturalness" of its place within market society,

and as an institution a TNC causes its individual constituents to "forget

experiences incompatible with its righteous image, and it brings to their mind

events which sustain the view of nature that is complimentary to itself. It



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

provides the categoriesoftheirthought, sets theterms for self-knowledge, and

fixes identities" (Douglas, 1986: 112).

The ability ofthe TNC to write its own narrative life-story, and thus to

evade accountability for its injuries against other agents and their property

poses grave problems for liberal-democratic law. Hence, the absence of

punitive action taken against Union Carbide and ODECO-MOCAN is no

more an aberration than the disasters are themselves. TNC accountability

evasion is structurally permitted within legal systems and broader societal

conceptions of risk, injury and blame. These have been conceptions ofmarket

society during industrialism, however, as we become conscious of ourselves

as a market society cum "risk society" (Beck, 1988/92) our paradigms are

shifting. One indication ofthis shift is a rethinking ofthe laws of causality

—

in the scientific, industrial paradigm, strict causality was demanded for both

legal and scientific-medical proof(Beck, 1988/92: 63; Cassels, 1993: 84). In

risk society, concepts of causality are mutating; we can no longer expect to

find single chains of causality: perpetrators-to-actions-to-events-to-conse-

quences. Corresponding to this is a current problematization of agency and

responsibility in legal and philosophicaldebates (Dan-Cohen, 1 992; Campbell,

1994; Bergson, 1993). In "risk society," we must search through the

synergistic interaction of multiple variables, tracing our way back through

manifold causality. The continued adherence of legal practice to strict

causality leaves us increasingly vulnerable to TNCs and in particular, to their

strategic interference in the construction of public memory.

In current legal debates, this problem is reflected in the re-thinking of

basic legal entities: in attempts to draw lines of responsibility and hence

accountability around TNCs, their middle managers, and executive officers

there is a growing awareness that the fundamental liberal-common law

distinction between "legal persons" as actors, and property as that which is

acted on, cannot cope with the peculiar actor-property-institutional nature of

corporations. As the "Union Carbide in Bhopal" and the Ocean Ranger cases

demonstrate, the sheer size and fragmented identity ofTNCs in subsidiaries

obscures responsibility, and makes accountability more difficult. These

difficulties nullify neither the possibility nor the political imperative of

achieving TNC accountability and consistent compensation programmes.''

Paradoxically, while international legal haggling over the price of local

bodies ultimately averts attention from victims/dependents as dominant

"reality" is rehabilitated in the disaster's aftermath, this same haggling can

forcethe limitations—and possibilities—of liberal-democratic law into stark



Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

relief against TNC accountability evasion. Liberal-democratic law has not

concerned itself historically with systemic power imbalances, nor with

technologically privileged information control . The following debates within

legal discussions indicate that liberal-democratic law is beginning to re-think

itself, with precisely these issues in mind.

Recovery ofLost Income: Tort and Workers ' Compensation

Canada, India and the US all haveCommon Law systems. In both Bhopal and

Ocean Ranger cases, plaintiffs attempted to pursueTNCs back to their "home

jurisdiction" in America, the Common Law system which most emphasizes

the "tort," "private," or "civil" law strain of their British legal heritage. "In

law, a tort is said to arise when one party, intentionally or unintentionally,

engages in an action which violates the rights (those associated with either

effective commodities or resources) of another and thereby causes the latter

party to sustain losses" (Mercuro and Ryan, 1 984: 76). In India, as in Canada,

there remains a strong burden of proof on the plaintiff, to show that the

defendant was intentionally negligent, and hence, directly responsible for

injury. As well, Canadian and Indian awards tend to rely on the traditional

calculus, which seeks to replace lost income, generally to the exclusion of

hedonic or punitive damages. Thus, Indian and Canadian awards represent

the projected market value "of the estimated future stream of the deceased's

earnings" (Bruehler, 1993: 2). In the US, however, there is an increasing

likelihood of receiving "hedonic" damages. Hedonic value-of-life assess-

ments are seen "as a signal to those making choices about the value ofthe risks

attending to each potential choice" (Bruehler, 1993: 2). Hedonic damages

awards then, are calculated according to a re-construction ofthe probability-

assessments of the perceived risk which culminated in the tort. What we see

at work here is a shift away from the strict causality required in thetraditional

assessment of torts. Acceptance of hedonic value-of-life awards indicate an

awareness of incremental blame—that a sequence of decisions based on risk

calculations can be attributed to both the claimant and the defendant,

reconstructed and weighed against one another after the fact. Further,

American tort law rules more frequently in favour of the plaintiff, and as a

function of the frequent use ofjury trials, awards are much higher. Hence,as

we saw, both the Bhopal victims' and the Ocean Ranger Families' litigation

were radically altered by the sheer possibility of access to American tort law



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

A flurry of industrial disasters in the 1980s and subsequent explosion

of the number and sizes of personal injury awards in the US has resulted in

a rethinking oftort in Common Law systems (American Law Institute, 1991).

More frequently, plaintiffs band together to pursue a "class action" in the

aftermath of industrial disaster. The most cited cases are the settlements won

by Vietnam vets from the producers of Agent Orange, the ongoing asbestos-

related disease suits, and, ofcourse, the Bhopal disaster litigation. Such mass

tort claims have a number of similarities: "they result in the filing of many

suits, they produce high litigation costs; they aregenerally resolved only after

great delay; they affect not only litigants but other users of the court system,

and their total human and economic costs affect all of society" (Rubin, 1 986:

427). The "true" costs of mass litigation following disasters is impossible to

calculate particularly in the Bhopal disaster, and others like the Hawks Nest

Pass disaster, where plaintiffs died waiting for compensation (Dembo et al.,

1 990). One thingthat is clear, however, is thatjust more than a third ofincome

generated bythe settlement process goes to plaintiffs . For instance. "Asbestos

litigation has resulted in far more expense than in recovery of damages for

injured persons. A Rand Corporation study estimated that injured persons

receive less than thirty-seven percent ofthe total amount spent on litigation.

Almost two-thirds ofthe total expenditures are for attorney's fees and other

litigation expenses" (Rubin, 1986: 429).

Both the Ocean Ranger settlement process and the Bhopal litigation

conform to 1980s patterns in tort proceedings in America, in so far as: both

plaintiff and defense attorneys "organized their efforts" and "exchanged

data"—a growing trend in mass litigation (Rubin, 1986: 438). As well, the

"ambulance chasers" and "company lawyers" seem to be forming a new

international legal expertise: "On both sides, specialized counsel are more

frequently appearing as trial counsel that once would have been tried by less

experienced counsel" (Rubin, 1 986: 439). Grisly as this line ofwork may be,

it can only bode well for victims, at least in providing legal counsel

indisputably on a parr with company lawyers bought with transnational

dollars. (F. Lee Bailey—lately of OJ Simpson trial fame—was one of the

lawyers acting for a group ofBhopal victims prior to the Indian government's

intervention.) Also, the importance of strategically chosen expertise is

evident: for instance, the Union Carbide medical team included a prominent

doctor who had been a researcher and (unconvincing) witness for the defense

inthe Johns-Manevilleasbestosis litigation (Cassels, 1993: 1 13; cfMorehouse

and Subramaniam, 1986). In both Ocean Ranger and Bhopal cases, the

©



Alternate Routes, Volume 1 2, 1995

American "interest" in the activity of the US-based parent TNC, controlling

their subsidiaries in "other jurisdictions" was insufficient to warrant claim-

ants' access to America's domestically generous, but overburdened tort

system.

Many American States and all Canadian Provinces have no-fault

insurance systems like Workers' Compensation which conflict with tort

actions. Where this is the case, two distinct compensation programmes,

supported by different underlying purposes and basic conceptions of "com-

pensation" are competing with one another. To summarize the issue:

The sources ofthe dissatisfaction with tort remedies can be traced

to legitimate economic concerns. Employers exert substantial

control and monitoring over workplace conditions, and from a

safety incentives standpoint, they should be given financial in-

ducements to provide safe capital equipment and to ensure safe

work practices. Tort liability remedies can establish such incen-

tives, butthis is a cumbersome process that imposes substantial

costs on both sides. Workers' compensation offers an administra-

tive compensation remedy that imposes lower transaction cost on

ffo claimants and avoids the confrontational aspects of a product

liability case ... Workers' compensation also provides for more

certain and rapid compensation... In return for the greater cer-

tainty of compensation, workers receive lower levels of compen-

sation under workers' compensation that they would in a tort

judgement. (Moore and Viscusi, 1990: 136)

The no-fault workers' compensation scheme spreads the cost of injury over

the entire industry and demands only that the claimant prove he/she was

injured at work. Tort, as we have seen, demands proof of employer negli-

gence, but in admitting the possibility of punitive awards, it carries an air of

retribution lost in the bureaucracy of Workers' Compensation. Further,

Workers Compensation can block tort, even in obvious cases of negligence.

As we saw in the Ocean Ranger case, the Workers Compensation Act

(NFLD) had to be altered to provide sustenance for families as they pursued

their settlements with the TNCs. Even with the Newfoundland provision in

place, lawyers for the Claimants' Committee were concerned that the

existence of Workers Compensation in Newfoundland might block their tort

action in American courts. In contrast, Bhopal's victims had no such support.



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

and further, as we saw, the government of India was less than hospitable to

some volunteer NGOs who sought to provide much needed relief.

Risk "Management" Through Tort and Regulation

In both the Ocean Ranger and Bhopal disasters, the issue is one of the legal

and moral responsibility of parent companies for their subsidiaries, and for

disasters caused bythe transfer ofhazardous technology without adequate—

or at least available—management and safety technology to accompany it.

Jasanoffargues, "Society is forced to make choices about who bears the risks

of technological development, knowing well that the distribution is often

unequal and that those who reap the greatest benefits from technology a re not

necessarily those who suffer most harm" (Jasanoff, 1988: 354). Though, as

Beck contends industrial society is giving way to risk society, where one

impact ofour toxic industrialization is to equalize or "democratize" exposure

to risk on account oftoxicity 's global reach (Beck, 1 988/92 ), we must not lose

sight of the fact that risk distribution continues to follow class lines: both

Bhopal and Ocean Ranger disasters struck the poorest segments of their

relative social environments. The fact that one of Canada's worst industrial

disasters killed 84 people, while the Bhopal disaster killed and maimed 4£fc

innumerable people, cannot be attributed to chance. The privileged decide

how great a risk society is willing to accept for those marginal groups who
will then take it.

It is widely accepted that both regulatory law and tort law attempt to

soften the impact of "tragic choices" a society must make when it decides to

become "technologically developed" (Jasanoff, 1988: 353). Regulatory, or

"public" law approaches to risk management have three distinctive charac-

teristics: 1) "they tend to focus on the aggregated impact of technology", 2)

they "steer away from concepts of fault or blame" and focus on future

prevention, 3) they are "informed by an awareness of recourse constraints"

(Jasanoff, 1988: 355). Tort law is more clearly individualistic and tied to

liberal notions of property, hence, "it adjudicates conflicts between specific

groups of victims and the producers or generators of specific hazardous

techniques" (Jasanoff, 1988: 355). Tort law deals with past wrongs between

parties, attempting to place victims in the same position they would have been

in, as far as money can do so, ifthe wrong had not taken place. The "overlap"

of tort laws and preventative statutory policies occurs because it is, further,

"a well recognized function of privatelaw [tort] to deter harmful conduct by



Alternate Routes, Volume 12, 1995

appropriately penalizing wrongdoers" (Jasanoff, 1988: 359). As for techno-

logical development that out steps regulatory law, tort action under Common
Law has traditionally provided a recourse for workers and victims where the

corporations involved should have reasonably foreseen the risk, given their

privileged knowledge of the hazards of their technology (JasanofT, 1988:

359). While overlapping is a problem, so too is the presumption that where

regulation lags, tort will suffice. Both Bhopal and Ocean Ranger disasters

demonstrate that TNC accountability evasion is facilitated by criminogenic

deficiencies in state regulatory legislation.

The Corporate Person in "Risk Society"

The notion of corporate self-regulation which continues to dominate business

ethics debates derives from laissez-faire market notions, with their correlative

moral, natural science, and political visions of the world as composed of

equally free bodies, moving within common structures of law. It includes,

furthermore, the liberal notion of directors and agents as the representatives

of shareholders: in much the same way that a political representative is

expected to vote as s/he believes will best serve his/her constituency, the

^Tk directors of limited liability corporations see themselves as obligated to make

decisions in the best commercial interest of their shareholders.

The corporate form of business is an integral part ofthe capitalist

society. It allows economies of scale by providing a means for a

multitude of investors to form a single identity. The risks of

ownership are spread out amongst the various investors, allowing

a larger percentage ofthe population the chance to own a piece of

the operation and profits. Since ownership is divested, the respon-

sibility for the control function of the corporation is correspond-

ingly allocated (Lansing and Hatfield, 1985: 409)

Of course, the reality of director-shareholder relations is far more

complex In a study ofhow corporate directors define their "proper constitu-

encies" it was found that directors' senses oftheir constituencies range "from

the beliefthat the shareholders are their only proper constituency to the notion

that they are responsible to a much broader range of groups, including

consumers, employees, and local communities" (in Nesteruk, 1991: 91).

Nesteruk argues that attempts to influence TNC behaviour illustrate the need

to formally recognize the limited liability of corporations as a third legal

entity, beyond the traditional liberal elements of actors and their properties.



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

This would mean institutional recognition of corporations as actor-property,

and also as sociological contexts, or as Nesteruk prefers, "moral worlds"

(Nesteruk, 1991: 76). Currently, as what Pearce calls "privileged criminals"

corporations can engage in lawful private transactions, like any legal person,

but they are not made accountable for their most negligent acts (Pearce,

1993).

Takingthe strategic capacity ofTNCs into account, we must agree with

Dembo et al., who argue in their study of Union Carbide that improvement

of safety measures and environmental practices cannot be achieved without

the willful participation ofthe TNC world. TNCs control information about

their own hazardous technologies, and consequently—as the Bhopal and

Ocean Ranger disasters indicate—they have great power to evade external

controls. Withouta real spirittowards self-regulation in industry, change will

be extremely difficult, not to say, impossible. In the meanwhile, we desper-

ately need technical experts who are not of the TNC world, those who

understand the technical components of industrial risk, can articulate them,

and can criticize (Beck, 1988/92: 234). Universities to some extent have

composed a pool oftechnological understanding that was not owned by the

TNC world. Cuts to funding for universities means more ambitious, able,

technologically trained resources for the TNC world and less technological

knowledge held publicly.

It is possible for state laws to influence corporate behaviour through

constructive means. For instance, they can assign personal liability to

directors of TNCs—as in the recent Bata ruling in Ontario, where two

directors were fined $14,000 each for pollution, with a stipulation that Bata

not pick up the tab (R. v. Bata, 1 992). This has the added benefit of making

directors more aware of the "real" or "true" cost of what have traditionally

been considered "free" public goods, like common spaces, air and water. In

drawing lines of liability to directors and officers in this way, courts are said

to "peel back" or "piercethe corporate veil". Racquet and Romsdahl explain:

courts historically looked through, or "pierced", the parent-

subsidiary or corporate-shareholder relationship to find the par-

ent or the shareholder liable for the acts of the corporation The

piercing doctrine was understood as a way to redress the damages

caused by the fraudulent acts of a company, when in fact those

acts were committed by the parent or owner, hiding behind the

corporate structure. The analysis generally was that the subsidi-

43



Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

ary is no more than the "instrument" of the parent, or that the

corporation is only the "alter-

ego" of the shareholder. (Racquet, Romsdahl, 1993: 372)

As inthe R. v. Batacase, courts "piercethe corporate veil" in an attempt

to respond to "the conflict between a society's need to maintain the benefits

of the corporate structure [of limited investor liability] and the need to curb

abusive uses of that structure" (Racquet and Romsdahl, 1993: 371).

States can encourage a corporate will to be ethical. For instance, they

can implement a system of corporate probation. Placer Developments Ltd.

were required by Canadian court to conduct research and produce a manual

on hazardous discharges and the environment, after being convicted of

discharging waste (R. v. Placer Developments Ltd., 1985). Lansing and

Hatfield suggest a toughened criminal law approach to corporate ir/respon-

sibility:

This proposal would use a combination of a 'watchdog' in the

corporate structure, a procedure to make public certain corporate

records, and the ultimate threat of causing corporate death

(dissolving the corporation). To a judge or other nonbusiness

officer, these actions would not seem as harsh as a high fine, orjail

term for an individual . But to a proud capitalist, these penalties are

far worse, and would more than likely actually be imposed in

practices. (Lansing and Hatfield, 1985: 413)

As with all such schemes, the problem is enforcement: does the cost of

enforcement out-weigh the probability that no accident will occur? Yet

another possibility is to provide monetary incentives in place of regulatory

measures (Lanoie, 1992). In Britain's North Sea oil industry, there is a

requirement of hazardous productive enterprises to submit a work plan,

detailing worker safety and environmental impact before state permission to

begin production is permitted. (A scheme such as this was one of the main

lobby thrusts ofthe Ocean Ranger Foundation, before its government funding

was cut in 1985.)

Conclusion

Starting from industrial disaster—the most obvious anti-social activity of

TNCs— I have argued that TNCs are strategic actors who evade social

accountability for wrong-doing through a series of demonstable information



Dodd/ TNC Industrial Disaster Strategies

control tactics. TNCs stategically influencethe construction ofsocial memory

of industrial disaster so that accountability claims are deflected from them

States and non-governmental organizations must make legal provisions to

protectaltemate "realities" from being overcome by the TNCs self-serving

version. Finally, as agency, responsiblity, and the very language of collective

action become increasingly problematic outside the moral worlds of TNCs,

we must retrieve material urgency from the vagueries ofpostmodern Leftism

It is imperative that we make the following claims against TNCs: 1) Recovery

oflost resources. This should follow a model seeking to define "replacement

of lost income" in cases of death, and a return to previous condition in cases

ofenvironmental or property destruction. Though there must be provision for

medical support for the injured, no monetary value should be put on suffering,

or "hedonic" goods in this type of claim 2) Implementation of safety

measures and a requirement to commit a percentage of Research and

Development investments directly into disaster prevention and response.

TNCs have privileged information about the dangers of their operations and

consequently hold the key to safety. Models of corporate probation will be

helpful here. 3) Internationally enforcedpunitive action against TNCs. It is

essential that punitive action be legally distinct from compensatory claims of

surviving victims or their dependents. Punitive action against TNCs should

be based on a concept of deterrence: if TNCs are truly profit-identified

organizations, then a sufficiently strong fining system would make CEO
agony over whether "it pays to do the right thing" obsolete Otherwise, the

"corporate veil" will have to be pierced untill it disintegrates. 4) Criminal

charges should be pressed against any TNC agent whofails to comply to

state murder, manslaughter, negligence, bodily harm;freedom ofinforma-

tion; environmental, health andsafety, or any other laws, regardless oftheir

position in the TNC.

Without tightly legislated and enforced state and international laws

holding TNCs accountable in all jurisdictions, no one is safe—though some

are certainly safer than others.

Notes

1. I would like to thank Mary P. Campell for discussion, comments and editing.

2. Industrial disasters are situations in which organized industrial activities cause major

damage to human life and social/natural environments (Shrivastava, 1994a;b).

3. For a detailed, readable account of the legal struggle, see Jamie Cassels, The Uncertain

Promise ofLaw: Lessons from Bhopal, 1993.

©



Alternate Routes, Volume12, 1995

4. These failures conform with Shrivastava's characterization of industrial disasters as

crises in technological systems which reflect crises in broader systems of social organization,

(Shnvastava, 1994: 251).

5. After the Ocean Ranger disaster, ODECO was fined US$ 25,000 by the US Coast Guard

"for operating 50 days with an expired certificate of inspection and US$ 100 for operating

the rig for two days without two required ablebodied seamen and a lifeboatman" (American

Press, December 22, 1983).

6. The recent failure of criminal charges against managers in Nova Scotia's Westray mining

disaster indicates yet another incidence of corporate accountability evasion in Canada.

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