PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
BP AND BHOPAL (20 June 2010)

That this House notes the US administration's insistence that BP set up an escrow fund of $20 billion to compensate the families of the 11 victims who died in the Deepwater Horizon disaster and to pay the full clean up costs as well as the indirect losses arising to US coastal businesses and livelihoods; recalls the Bhopal Gas tragedy in India where over 15,000 people died and approximately half a million people have suffered serious injury and long-term illness as a result of a leak of methyl isocyanate at the plant of American-owned Union Carbide Corporation and where a total settlement of less than half a billion dollars was made by the company; expresses its profound concern that the victims' recent request to President Obama for the extradition of Union Carbide Corporation CEO, Warren Anderson, has been rebuffed; and urges the US administration to show by its action that the same standards of corporate responsibility that apply to non-US companies in dealing with American citizens apply equally to American companies dealing with non-US citizens, and that the value of a life in India is worth no less than in the United States.

Sponsored by:
Barry Gardiner (Labour)