NYU Hosts a Review of an Environmental and Human Rights Disaster on the 15th Anniversary of the Deaths in Bhopal
Beginning on the night of December 3rd, 1984, some 16,000 people in Bhopal, India perished from exposure to methyl isocyanate, a lethal chemical released from a Union Carbide plant in the city. It is believed that some 520,000 people were ultimately exposed, and over 120,000 have an ongoing need for medical attention.
WHAT: New York University’s School of Education will host a discussion on the tragedy and its aftermath for faculty, students, scholars and the public. The event will feature a panel discussion with anthropologist and former Union Carbide attorney Brain Mooney, attorney Rajan Sharma, and NYU Prof. Arvind Rajagopal; a slide show featuring survivors in Bhopal, and a screening of a documentary, Bhopal: A License to Kill.
WHEN: Friday, December 3, 1999, 1:00 pm
WHERE: NYU’s Education Building, 35 West 4th Street, Room 306
Professor Arvind Rajagopal, a member of the faculty of the Department of Culture and Communications, said, “The Bhopal disaster happened 15 years ago, but it’s an ongoing catastrophe. The victims remain poorly treated, poorly compensated, and, worst of all, unacknowledged. Bhopal offers a loud and clear warning about the human toll that may come from allowing large corporations to regulate themselves, to escape national regulations through their transnational status, to export unsafe technologies in the name of progress, and to put the blame where it doesn’t belong, on Third World governments. An American court gave Union Carbide the judgment it sought, to transfer the case to an Indian court, where it was able to manipulate the system to its advantage. Americans have a right to know how their corporations are representing them abroad. Such information often gets sidelined or ignored. The 15th anniversary is a time when we can measure the rhetoric of globalization against the reality faced by its poorest beneficiaries.”