ABSTRACT
The disastrous event on the night of 2 December 1984 in Bhopal, in which more than 40 tons of a deadly mixture of toxic gases from the Union Carbide factory escaped into the atmosphere, has been misleadingly termed an accident. This chapter reviews the Bhopal disaster in which thousands of people were killed and several million permanently disabled and identifies a number of failures in the legal and medical responses to the event. The catastrophe demanded from the Union Carbide Corporation, the organization responsible for the accident, a response that was humane and in keeping with the image that industry wishes to project, that of a concerned partner. 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 USA. The logical consequence of the legal appropriation of the disaster was its medical appropriation as well.
