Bhopal

I recently watched the documentary "Bhopal: The Search for Justice." From Wikipedia:

The Bhopal Disaster took place in the early hours of the morning of December 3, 1984, in the heart of the city of Bhopal, India, in the state of Madhya Pradesh. A Union Carbide subsidiary pesticide plant released 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas, immediately killing nearly 3,000 people and ultimately causing at least 15,000 to 22,000 total deaths. Bhopal is frequently cited as the world's worst industrial disaster. The International Medical Commission on Bhopal was established in 1993 to respond to the disaster.

My employer, Dow Chemical, purchased Union Carbide in 2001 and has been under pressure to do something about Bhopal. From Dow's web page about the issue:

Bhopal was a terrible tragedy that none of us will ever forget. However, it is important to note that Dow never owned or operated the plant, which today is under the control of the Madhya Pradesh state government. Dow acquired the shares of Union Carbide Corporation more than 16 years after the tragedy, and 10 years after the $470 million settlement agreement - paid by Union Carbide Corporation and Union Carbide India, Limited - was approved by the Indian Supreme Court.

Although Dow never owned nor operated the plant, we - along with the rest of industry - have learned from this tragic event, and we have tried to do all we can to assure that similar incidents never happen again.

While Dow has no responsibility for Bhopal, we have never forgotten the tragic event and have helped to drive global industry performance improvements.

I understand Dow's argument: Union Carbide was a part of Dow neither when the tragedy occurred nor when Union Carbide settled with the Indian government. But Union Carbide did become part of Dow, and the settlement Union Carbide made does not seem to have adequately remedied the situation. According to the film, the site has never been cleaned up, so the pollution continues to affect the people living in the area. Though perhaps Dow has no legal responsibility for Bhopal, it seems like is does have a moral responsibility to try to make things right. If you (Union Carbide and now Dow) pay someone (the Indian government) to fix a mess you made (disaster in Bhopal) but the mess isn't cleaned up (due to either inadequate funds or failures of the Indian government), you still have a moral responsibility to clean up the mess.