## Facts

- A toxic methyl isocyanate gas leak occurred in Bhopal, India (Dec. 2–3, 1984) at a plant operated by Union Carbide India Limited, causing mass deaths and injuries.
- India enacted the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, 1985, granting the Government of India exclusive authority to represent all victims’ claims in India and abroad.
- The Government of India filed a consolidated action in the Southern District of New York against Union Carbide, the U.S. parent corporation.
- The consolidated U.S. litigation was dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds subject to conditions including Union Carbide’s submission to jurisdiction in India.
- Compensation proceedings and a major settlement were later handled through Indian courts and processes.
- Individual victims (including Bi) filed separate U.S. suits against Union Carbide despite the statute and Indian proceedings.
- The district court dismissed these individual complaints on forum non conveniens; the plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether U.S. courts should recognize India’s statute granting the Government of India exclusive authority to sue for Bhopal victims, thereby depriving individual victims of standing to bring independent U.S. actions.
2. Whether giving effect to that statute is barred by U.S. public policy or due process concerns.
3. Whether comity and related doctrines support enforcing the foreign allocation of litigation authority in U.S. courts.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed dismissal of the complaints.
- The court affirmed on lack-of-standing grounds, not on forum non conveniens.
- The court held the Indian statute validly vested exclusive standing in the Government of India to represent Bhopal victims’ claims worldwide.
- The court gave effect to that allocation of authority based on respect for India’s sovereign legislative choice and the existence of channels for relief in India.

## Legal Principles

- U.S. courts may, as a matter of international comity, give effect to a foreign sovereign’s statute that centralizes and exclusively assigns authority to litigate mass-tort claims arising within that sovereign’s territory.
- When a foreign law grants a sovereign exclusive authority to pursue specified claims “in India or elsewhere,” individual claimants may lack a legally cognizable right to sue independently in U.S. courts.
- Courts may decline to question a foreign sovereign’s internal public-law allocation of representational authority, especially where it reflects a governmental response to a domestic crisis and does not contravene fundamental U.S. public policy.
- The availability of an alternative remedial process in the foreign forum supports deference to the foreign scheme and undermines arguments that recognition would leave claimants without a remedy.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit held that individual Bhopal victims could not maintain separate U.S. tort suits because Indian law vested exclusive worldwide representational authority in the Government of India, and comity warranted recognizing that allocation of standing.


Bi v. Union Carbide Chems. & Plastics Co., 984 F.2d 582 (2d Cir. 1993)