•HRES 1604 IH 
Whereas Union Carbide and its representatives have ignored 
repeated summonses to appear in court in India, and ap-
plications under 2 extradition treaties between India and 
the United States dating back to 1942 have failed to se-
cure their appearance; 
Whereas Dow Inc., the owner of Union Carbide since 2001, 
has not compelled its subsidiary to attend any pro-
ceedings relating to the Bhopal disaster; 
Whereas, regarding the Bhopal disaster, Amnesty Inter-
national states that ‘‘The indifference and disdain with 
which the survivors and their descendants have been 
treated ever since the gas leak, the lack of proper and ef-
fective accountability of both state and corporate actors 
for both the gas leak and ongoing contamination, and the 
failure to ensure a reparations programme that ade-
quately addresses all past and ongoing harms have been 
enabled by entrenched environmental racism’’, in which 
the people who inhabit industrial ‘‘sacrifice zones’’ are 
treated ‘‘as disposable, their voices ignored, their pres-
ence excluded from decision-making processes and their 
dignity and human rights trampled upon’’; 
Whereas United States Census data shows that census tracts 
where people of color are the majority experience 40 per-
cent more cancer-causing industrial air pollution and are 
twice as likely to get cancer from toxic air pollution com-
pared to census tracts where White people are the major-
ity, and the majority of residents near facilities where ac-
cidents occur are from historically underserved and over-
burdened populations; and 
Whereas the centrality of human rights to the foreign policy 
of the United States and the commitment of the United 
States to the right to freedom from discrimination are in 
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•HRES 1604 IH 
line with the goal of safeguarding against future chemical 
disasters, which disproportionately impact vulnerable 
communities: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) recognizes the 40-year effort of the sur-
vivors of the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster to en-
sure that no other community around the world suf-
fers another Bhopal-level disaster by supporting the 
designation of National Chemical Disaster Aware-
ness Day; 
(2) applauds the resilience of the Bhopal chem-
ical disaster survivors in battling to overcome ill 
health, poverty, and marginalization to try to estab-
lish a deterrent against future chemical disasters; 
(3) calls on the Department of Justice to 
take— 
(A) timely steps in response to requests by 
the Indian Government concerning Dow Inc., 
who purchased the Union Carbide facility where 
the disaster took place; and 
(B) any other actions necessary for the 
United States to comply with obligations under 
the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in 
Criminal Matters, signed at New Delhi on Octo-
ber 17, 2001 (TIAS 05–1003); 
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•HRES 1604 IH 
(4) seeks to engage with the survivors of the 
Bhopal chemical disaster to strengthen the public’s 
understanding of the dangers of chemical disasters; 
and 
(5) emphasizes that supporting human rights 
and protecting the right to freedom from discrimina-
tion are and should remain key pillars of United 
States foreign policy worldwide. 
Æ 
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