Solidarity after Bhopal: Building a Transnational Environmental Justice Movement

Abstract

Abstract This article documents the history of the U.S.-based campaign that emerged around the ongoing Bhopal disaster, since the 2001 merger of Union Carbide Corporation (Union Carbide) and the Dow Chemical Company (Dow). Based on interviews with key organizers and former and current campaigners in the United States and in Bhopal, the article discusses how this movement has worked to keep the Bhopal disaster alive and relevant for its three target constituencies in the United States. By appealing to social and environmental justice (EJ) groups, students, and the Indian diaspora, the campaign has won small victories in India and has challenged Dow's greenwashing attempts. Members of the diaspora have been instrumental in setting in motion what scholars have called the boomerang effect through exerting pressure on the Indian government. We also see the double boomerang at work in the United States when EJ activists make strategic references to Bhopal in times of crisis. More needs to be done, however, to b...