Australian correspondent, David Broadbent
India and some African countries plan to attract nuclear power developers and operators by limiting their legal liabilities.
I had difficulty in understanding the impetus for this policy conversation, in the country of the Bhopal disaster, during my working visit to India in March.
Bhopal's fallout is still being felt. Union Carbide did a runner and Dow Chemicals did not come to the reparations party much either. My moral compass struggles with the relationship between states and big business.
India is set on legislating nominal reparations amounts. The amount being reported in the Indian press during March was nominal indeed. Proponents said India had to offer these trade-offs to get investment.
African countries would face the same pressure to sell out some corporate liability in return for uranium mining investment.
At what point may a government auction off health and safety legislation, and Sheq values of their people, for the sake of a seemingly quick energy solution?
Nuclear energy risks are large, and uranium mining impacts could be as large, and longer lasting.
Those inside the industry often speak to near misses that the public never hear about. If multi-billion dollar corporate entities enter a sovereign state with a product, they should be fully accountable to any liabilities that may arise as a consequence of that product. Health and safety should not be for sale. My message to the Indian Parliament is; do not behave like a country accountable to colonial powers. Assert independence on power and technology.
Corporate rhetoric plays up 'investment in the developing world', but they merely want to hang on the tails of the eastern comet, and India is one of the comets of the world economy.
After the 2010 explosion and multiple fatalities on BP Deepwater Horizon platform, there have been similar noises about the need to 'cap' liability in the petrochemical industry.
Does anybody really think that BP, Trans Ocean and Halliburton should walk away with a capped liability after this destruction? Should the lid be at US$90 million? I do not think so.
Just as well that the US senate now search entrants for handguns. Considering the way that some senior executives now talk, a Texan gunfight could beak out in the corridors of power.
Sheq management is not about fixing blame, as we always tell workers at an incident investigation; it is all about finding information and improving management.
Yet legislation and the entire legal system are geared to fixing blame and deterring willful exploitation of safety, health and environment.
What behaviours do employees of the three Texan companies, and all big business, see being modelled before the world?
They talk Sheq, while ducking blame, not improving management, and ever planning to reduce Sheq liabilities. There is a gap between corporate words and deeds.
David Broadbent is the founder of TransformationalSafety.Com and will speak at International Congress of Applied Psychology, 11-16 July 2010, on 'Development of Transformational Safety Culture Improvement System and its application to safety improvement in the petrochemicals industry'.
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