Lit Review of Business and Human Rights: A New Approach to Advancing Environmental Justice in the United States, in Human Rights in the United States: Beyond Exceptionalism
As mentioned in the October 19 post “The Difference Between Corporate Social Responsibility and Business and Human Rights,” CSR And BHR are, well ? different. I’m happy to show that I’m not alone in noting this distinction. Professor Joanne Bauer, who teaches at Columbia University, recently wrote about the CSR/CHR distinction in a book chapter that is part of a larger project that is also close to my heart – dispelling the notion that BHR issues are for “other” countries, not the U.S. In her book chapter Prof. Bauer argues that the BHR approach is better suited to protect communities from corporate/industrial harm. In particular, she discusses the example from Kanawha Valley, West Virginia, a subject that as a WVU faculty member, really hits close to home.
Many BHR advocates are familiar with the story. In 1984, a Union Carbide facility in Bhopal, India, exploded, killing and injuring thousands of people. The same chemical that caused the explosion in India was also being stored in West Virginia, at another Union Carbide plant. Despite efforts to raise awareness (including a 1991 documentary on the explosion) this was not enough to prevent disaster from happening again. I’m August 2008, there was another explosion, this time in West Virginia.
Although the explosion killed two workers, it could have been significantly worse. When the Congressional subcommittee conducted its investigation, it discovered that a vessel thrown during the explosion missed a storage tank that held several tons of the chemical that caused the explosion in India. Furthermore, the subcommittee found that there were numerous safety lapses and that theCEO tried to use chemical plant security regulations to hide information about the incident. Despite promises to reduce the chemical production, the company has still not reduced the stockpile of the chemical nor has the international community done much to force the company to respond. For scholars in this field the incidents, both In India and here, seems to fall squarely within the rubric ofBHR, yet there is a persistent tendency to discuss the one incident (in India) as a human rights issue while labeling the incident in West Virginia as safety issue.
And yet, despite the attempt at coloring similar facts in a different way, what is heartening to me about this particular incident is how the victims themselves reject this narrative – that somehow the struggles of those affected in West Virginia are different than those in India, simply because of geography. Prof, Bauer documents how the advocacy group “People Concerned about MIC” a WV based organization, has “maintained its connection to victims in Bhopal.” Presumably, such a connection to a community half way around the world has led to a common understanding of the struggles that lie ahead.
I teach in two study abroad programs here at the university and one of the main benefits I have found in the program is how it gets my students (many of whom have never left the state) to see that, while there are some differences across borders, there are many more similarities. The residents of Kanawha county, through tragedy, reached that same conclusion.
What would be great now if that feeling of kinship can translate into a legal framework that sees civil rights and human rights as long suffering neighbors, rather than polar opposites. With books like Human Rights in the United States, we may getting one step closer to that reality.
