Forty years ago, a deadly gas leak from a pesticide plant in the city of Bhopal in India killed at least 22,000 people. Since then, Bhopal has been a ‘sacrifice zone’ for the US-based chemical company Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), and its later owner the Dow Chemical Company (Dow), as well as the US and Indian authorities, in which half a million people across multiple generations continue to suffer.

Dow, one of the world’s largest chemical companies, in 2001 purchased UCC, the US-based company that had majority-owned the Bhopal plant at the time of the 1984 disaster. Dow took full control of UCC’s assets and benefits, and thereby, it should have also absorbed its liabilities. Instead, Dow has constantly distanced itself from any responsibility towards survivors.

Moreover, lobbying and pressure from the US government has ensured that American nationals and companies responsible for the disaster have escaped criminal justice.

More than 500,000 were injured or have suffered permanent harms, including through the inter-generational impact of MIC exposure on reproductive health, and through water sources contaminated by chemicals left on the site.