ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes findings in an earlier study and inquires into the causes of the Bhopal accident and its lessons for the corporate management of health and safety hazards. A profile of Union Carbide Corporation and its hazard-management programs, as they existed at the time of the Bhopal accident, sets the context. Union Carbide's hazard-management structure and programs were quite characteristic of those prevailing among large companies in the US chemical industry. As at PETROCHEM, hazard management at Union Carbide had undergone substantial corporate upgrading in the mid-1970s, when various health, safety, medical, and legal functions were centralized into a single management unit. Hence the 1970 decision of Union Carbide of India Limited to manufacture the pesticide Sevin in an advanced facility in central India met with great fanfare. The choice-of-technology mistake at Bhopal by Union Carbide was not the transfer of the modern formulation plant for bulk pesticides needed for Indian agriculture.
