Column
| Author | Salil Tripathi |
| Published date | 01 June 2012 |
| Date | 01 June 2012 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/016934411203000201 |
| Subject Matter | Column |
Netherlands Q uarterly of Human R ights, Vol. 30/2, 133–136, 2012.
© Netherlands I nstitute of Human Rig hts (SIM), Printed in the Net herlands. 133
COLUMN
S T*
e Olympic Games wil l begin in July in London, and the Brit ish capital is gearing up
for the festivities celebrati ng the ultimate competition of sporting prowess between
nations. With over 200 countrie s participating in the Games , organising a n event on
such a scale costs mi llions of dollars. Since the 1990s, Olympic Ga mes organising
commit tees have t urned to c orporate s ponsors to he lp defray t he costs. Business es get
publicity; organisers gets resources; spectators presumably get access to the sporting
events at a lower cost.
What are the responsibilities of the organisers in deciding who they should take
sponsorship money from? Organisers of the London Olympics realised they had to
confront the question when they found rising international activism and criticism
when it was revealed that the A merican company, Dow Chemical, was one of the
sponsors of the Games. Criticism was loud in India, where parl iamentarians a nd
former Olympians threatened to launch a st ir to boycott India’s participation in the
Games, and some act ivist organisations echoed cal ls from India.
Objections to Dow’s association with the Ga mes arose because Dow nds itself
at the centre of one of the world’s longest-running, unresolved disputes concerning
business and human rig hts – the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 in India. I n of December
that year, a lethal gas – met hyl isocya nate – leaked from t he fertil iser plant of Union
Carbide India Ltd., the Indi an subsidiary of the US-base d Union Carbide Corporation.
Between two and th ree thousand people died soon a er in haling the gas , and
thousand s more were a ected; the l ives of many shortened due to the damage caused
to their internal organs. American lawyers broug ht a case before US courts, but the
case was sent back to India on grounds of forum non conveniens, or inconvenient
forum. e Ind ian Government took over the task of negotiating for compens ation on
behalf of all v ictims, and negotiated with the America n company. A comprehensive
settlement for $470 mill ion was reached, and the Indian Supreme Cour t approved the
settlement.
In the years since, two t ypes of problems have emerged. One involves the slow
progress in distr ibuting the compensation amounts to the victi ms. e other involves
discovery of more problems involving the Bhopal plant, including contamination
of the city’s ground water because of allegedly improper storage of materials at the
Bhopal plant. What complicates t he victims’ quest for justice, however, is the fact that
Union Carbide sold its Indian unit to another Indian company in the early 1990s,
* Salil Tripath i is Director of Policy at t he Institute for Hum an Rights and Bu siness in London.
(www.ihrb.org).
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