Nearly 26 years ago, the Bhopal plant of an Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide, a massive US corporation, suffered a catastrophic malfunction. The storage containers of the plant – which produced industrial pesticides – leaked highly toxic gas during the night, exposing over 500,000 people to the poisonous fumes. Estimates into the effects vary – the Indian government confirmed nearly two and a half thousand deaths immediately after the leak, and fatalities related to the incident have swelled to over 15,000 since then. The company continues to insist that the disaster was the result of sabotage, but successive studies have pointed to a wide array of internal processes that led to the leak, including a negligent approach to critical equipment and safety standards. Most shockingly, the plant has still not been entirely fixed – 390 tons of toxic chemicals abandoned at the UCIL plant continue to leak and pollute the groundwater in the region.

I’m not going to attempt to replicate the work of the many journalists and academics who have been working to uncover the truth of this case for nearly three decades. The Bhopal Post does outstanding work bringing the unfolding effects of the disaster to a wider audience, while Amnesty has consistently agitated for justice. Unfortunately, the Bhopal victims’ days in court so far have delivered anything but. Union Carbide has so far paid just $470 million in damages and compensation, a criminally small sum in the face of the $3 billion claimed. Those officials who were tried for criminal negligence received small sentences – 2 years each. Warren Anderson, the head of Union Carbide at the time and the figure most widely blamed for the incident, was allowed to escape trial for reasons that remain unclear.

The incident has exposed some measure of hypocrisy on behalf of the US government when it comes to corporate crime. Union Carbide paid $470 million to clean up its mess, compensate half a million victims and build hospitals in the region. By contrast, BP have pledged $20 billion to clean up the Deepwater Horizon spill.

These two cases bring to mind a proposition, put forward by a British lawyer, that “ecocide” be considered a crime to be tried in the International Criminal Court, on a par with genocide and other crimes against humanity. As described, the suggestion seems whimsical at best:

The radical idea would have a profound effect on industries blamed for widespread damage to the environment like fossil fuels, mining, agriculture, chemicals and forestry.

Supporters of a new ecocide law also believe it could be used to prosecute “climate deniers” who distort science and facts to discourage voters and politicians from taking action to tackle global warming and climate change.

But the idea of a system of corporate responsibility that can be prosecuted at an international level is an intriguing one. It would, sadly, almost certainly be opposed by the US, which would regard it as a hostile mechanism for attacking American corporate interests. Sadly, it’s hard to see how justice can be served to those still suffering in Bhopal.