BHOPAL LITIGATION: Indian court to review settlement

The bizarre legal saga of the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster could enter a confusing new phase this week. A five-judge panel of the Indian Supreme Court is meeting in New Delhi to deal with challenges surrounding the $470 million settlement between Union Carbide and the Indian government. First, the court will decide on the constitutionality of the 1985 law—the Bhopal Claims Act—that gave the Indian government the exclusive right to represent the victims. The suits, brought by various groups soon after the act was passed, say that the government failed to respect the rights of the victims to bring suits on their own and that the government, accused of being part of the cause of the disaster in some other suits, could not do a good job of representing them. If the law is declared unconstitutional, private suits against Carbide and Indian state, local, and national governments would theoretically be possible. After ruling on ...