Should CEO's who knowingly cause 8,000 deaths be on death row? Bhopal

LEGAL BASIS FOR EXTRADITION

On 28 August 2002, an Indian court affirmed a criminal charge of "culpable homicide" under Section 304 Part II of the Indian Penal Code, against Warren Anderson for the deaths of over 8000 persons in 1984 following a poisonous gas leak from Union Carbide's pesticide factory in Bhopal. The court directed the prosecuting agency -- the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) -- to expedite the extradition of Warren Anderson from the United States to face trial in India.

The case was made by the CBI when b evidence pointed to the fact that in an effort to save money, the US multinational and its then Chairman CEO Anderson, along with several senior executives, had knowingly and willfully allowed the setting up of a pesticide plant with seriously flawed design and inadequate safety systems in the midst of a highly populated residential area.

ANDERSON'S POSITION

Warren Anderson has mocked the victims of the tragedy by ignoring each summons and never appearing in the Indian court during the entire duration of the ongoing criminal case, dating back to 1987.

Anderson currently lives a lavish lifestyle in Bridgehampton, New York while the children, women and men exposed to his company's toxins languish in disease and poverty.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=5548

"Them's who got no capital get the punishment"

Mass murderers such as this should definitely be executed.

Why can't they put them on trial here in the US?

and on edit just for the record NO... should be paying in another creative form of punishment, but I would have to think more on just what that would be.

Let them remember why they had their Freedom taken away from them. That's justice...

LIFE with no exception.

sounds like a good start, preferable in some unpleasant prison such as San Quentin.

UK Prime Minister --

not one US Presidents -- nor any US politician.

and there was no extradition treaty in effect at the time, there's nothing India can do about it. Honestly, would you report to a foreign country for trial and sentencing, if there was no legal reason to do so?

the great satan or not. It's really up to us, I mean the ones who stole the elections.

and extradite someone? really? the US and India did not have an extradition treaty until 1997, and a mutual cooperation in law enforcement treaty until 2001. India had him in custody, and let him go, knowing that there was no legal way to recover him. That was obviously a mistake on their part. But, unfortunately, there is no legal way to force his extradition.

India Asks U.S. To Extradite Former Union Carbide Chairman
by the Environment News Service
 
WASHINGTON - The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB) and survivors organizations have prompted the Indian government to serve a longstanding notice to the U.S. government to extradite former Union Carbide Chairman Warren Anderson.

Anderson is wanted in the Bhopal Court for his primary role in the 1984 gas disaster in Bhopal that has claimed more than 20,000 lives to date.

"This long awaited move is a major step foward in our struggle for justice," said Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmachari Sangh (Bhopal Gas-Affected Women Stationery Workers Association). "We will ensure that this is not just a token gesture."


Warren Anderson at his home in Bridgehampton, New York. (Daily Mirror Photo/Shannon Sweeney)
Bee said her organization will continue to pressure the Indian government until Anderson and others responsible face trial in the ongoing criminal case, and ICJB says its network of U.S. supporters has already initiated moves to ensure that the U.S. government honors the extradition request.

"After all the talk about justice, it is now time for the U.S. government to walk the walk and get Anderson to face criminal trial in Bhopal," said Krishnaveni Gundu, ICJB's coordinator in the United States.

<snip>

In 2002, documents unearthed in the process of a class action suit against Anderson and Union Carbide in New York revealed that not only did Union Carbide knowingly export untested and hazardous technology to Bhopal, but also that this decision was authorized personally by Anderson.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0709-09.htm

But that is not the point here. The point is how small scale murderers, especially those of color and especially those who are poor regardless of color, get extraordinary punishment while the large scale murderes live out lavish lifestyles in various parts of the globe.

Add to that the attention given to these smaller time crimes while the "man on the street" seems unable to get so worked up about the massive murders. And of course to examine the State and/or the System in place as the major issue is verboten.

first off, the Treaty, signed in 1997. is not retroactive, and the US didn't cite this, which Anderson could use to delay his extradition from the US for years (this would end up at SCOTUS, most likely, Anderson is over 80, he'd be dead by the time this got solved) on a finer point, the request for extradition does not meet the terms of the treaty, even if it is retroactive, since the application did not include the correct information, including the equivalent crime in the US, and sufficient evidence to show a likelihood of conviction, for the equivalent crime under US law.

The government of India doesn't really want this, so it will never happen.

who is the criminal and what defines criminality and to what degree.

Certainly don't want to disrupt trade relations.

one of the two. Yes, the law even protects reprehensible jerks like Warren Anderson.

is by and large the codification, under the guise of "societal norms and protections", of the mandates of Power.

All the juristic nonsense slops outside the reality of everyday lives.

that's what you're saying, right? "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"?

you can talk aobut changing the law moving forward, but retroactively changing it is a whole nother kettle of fish.

The issues are of far more import to me than labelling people.

Warren Anderson is a criminal. If he was poor and had, let's say, murdered a wealthy member of the Indian Gov't he would be (have been) extradited in a heartbeat.

And no what I said was far from your interpretation of what I said. The powerful control what becomes law and the processes involved. It's obvious in the reality.

Legalese is most often a smokescreen to keep the truth in its proper place- far from view.

that's the point.

He has been charged with a crime, not convicted. And what's more so, he has not been charged with a crime that, under the treaty signed between the sovereign states of India and the United States, allows for extradition. Every extradition treaty ever signed that is worth the paper it's printed on requires the claimant state to prove that there is probable cause that a crime has been committed under receiving state law.

he may be an asshole, he's certainly civily liable (and Union Carbide has been held liable, by the Supreme Court of India, for this horrendous incident. and litigation is at least being pursued in the US courts, I believe) but the very prosecutor charging him with a crime chose to charge him with a crime that does not have a direct correlation under US law. The corrolary you cite is a first degree murder, something illegal in both the United States and India. The US, like many countries, is involved in multiple extradition battles, as both the claimant and host state, at any given time. Most are simple. some are complicated (for instance, many countries won't extradite to the US unless the Death Penalty is off the table)

If, in fact, a serious violation of Indian law occured, then the onus is on India to file an extradition request that meets the terms laid out by the laws of both nations. That's how it works. Surely somewhere in the government of India there are some decent attorneys who can look up the right statute? if not, then the US should never extradite a citizen to a country that cannot come up with a decent legal reason for it, how can we guarantee a fair trial if the entire government of India can't fill out a form correctly?

so maybe the problem is on the India end, if the Government doesn't want this, why is it the responsibility of the US government to enforce their laws for them?

the whole point of a codified legal code is that there are regulations and policies that apply to everyone, even the scumbags of the world.

I stand corrected. You made a couple of assertions which did not ring true. However, after researching it further, you are, in fact, correct.

it seems so insane, but it seems to be the way life is.

to everyone. That may be a nice ideal, but even that doesn't treat the subject honestly or in full, but the reality is the law is made by corporate power and it applies mostly to the lower classes though we can see the occasional white collar criminal get time in a first class jail with early probation of course.

The reality is obvious.

For instance, job-related accidents and illnesses claimed the lives of 70,000 Americans in 1992, a significant portion of which can be chalked up to employers neglecting to comply with occupational health and safety laws. According to studies, up to 64,000 die every year due to pollution and other environmental hazards produced by industry. Another 21,700 die due to consumer product deaths, costing the nation $200 billion a year. Another $200 billion is lost annually due to white-collar embezzlement. These two statistics alone add up to over 26 times the amount of all the robberies and petty thefts committed every year combined!

We should also not forget the ravages of the white-owned health care system and insurance industry. Around 18,000 adults are killed every year as a result of a lack of medical coverage. Over 25 thousand die as a result of unnecessary prescriptions and surgeries performed by doctors. All in all, corporate criminals take about ten times as many lives as street criminals. And I haven't even mentioned the (mostly) white men who control the apparatus of state, which through war, sanctions, and other means kills hundreds of thousands, if not millions more. Over 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq alone, for example.

to his kind. The really funny thing...hysterical actually...is that the same people that are screaming for a hanging...could very easily succumb to the system they laud. They truly believe that a persons value can be judged by a moment in time, and they are equipped to make that judgement. I do hope they all get to try someone elses shoes on sometime, and take a long walk. The only thing I am sure of is that this country, and this society has no system of justice...the proof is in the reality.

but nobody listens.

as hell don't get the dp!

dp is JUSTICE, blind JUSTICE!!! but rich men are greater than justice. JUSTICE is for the poor. get used to it.

I don't believe that the CEO woke up that morning intending on murdering 8000 people.

So while the numbers are great and horrible, that doesnt put him in the same class as a serial killer or killer like Tookie Williams.

However, if you were to ask me, "should CEOs who intentionally murder people be subject to the DP"? I would answer yes, they should be held to the same standard as anyone else.

In 2002, documents unearthed in the process of a class action suit against Anderson and Union Carbide in New York revealed that not only did Union Carbide knowingly export untested and hazardous technology to Bhopal, but also that this decision was authorized personally by Anderson.

See Above Post

and criminaly responsible for all those deaths.

Im just saying that pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger is different than being criminally irresponsible in a way that causes deaths.

If Union carbide believed that 8,000 people would die because of their actions, I believe that wouldnt have done it (after all, mass murder is bad for business)

Now having said that, I AM very uncomfortable with defending them at all. They ARE criminally negligent, and responsible for shattering tens of thousands of lives. But I just don't believe it rises to the level of intentional murder.

I don't believe that most drunk drivers intend to kill their victims, but they do. The reason why they're so harshly punished is because they know that the possibility of killing someone exists every time they take the wheel when intoxicated. If a drunk driver somehow managed to kill 8,000 people at one shot, I'd bet there'd be calls for the death penalty. Difference here is that money, not alcohol, was the intoxicant.

Both the "intoxicant" and the crime.

Would I support the Death penality for drunk drivers that kill multiple people?

My knee jerk answer is no, but its something that I would prefer to think about more before hanging my hat on that answer.

a significant number of the villagers ran TOWARDS the plant when the sirens went off. Previously, they would goto the plant and were amused by the sight of the "Crazy Americans" in their space suits. Just this time, they ran into a cloud of HCN gas.


RegexReader
$USA =~ s/Republican/Democrat/ig;

truly horrific

Yeah, right.

definitely, with NO PAROLE WHATSOEVER!

He had a peace activist on with him, I can't remember her name, she chained herself to a tower at the Union Carbide Plant in ? Texas. They arrested her and she, like Anderson, jumped bail. She says she will go to jail after he does. She also said that she and Anderson had the same bail. :wtf: She says he has homes in the Hamptons and elsewhere, so he can be found and that he isn't being sought after.

a $500 bail in Texas is a lot less, comparatively, than a $500 bail in India.

and, by the way, if this woman fled to India to skip bail, India wouldn't extradite her to the US either. It's not covered in the Extradition treaty.

tar and feathers, then put behind bars, seems quite appropriate to me.

preferrably flayed to death by cute, fuzzy kittens over his catnip oil massaged body. or tied to an anthill and lathered in chocolate to the background music of willy wonka and the chocolate factory... i don't know which i'd prefer more... oh, i got it! in my perfect world he'd reincarnate after each death to be tormented in a new, elaborate, horrendously cute fashion for each and every person's life he ruined. now i'm thinking something involving care bears, a grain silo, and smothering for the next one...
:evilgrin:

there are two sets of laws. One for the rich and one for everyone else.

deaths be on death row?