The involvement of corporates in sponsorship of the Olympic Games in 2012 here in London has been particularly controversial.
Paralympic organisers have defended the sponsorship of the games by Atos, a private multinational company whose UK healthcare arm is responsible for delivering controversial “work capability” assessments (WCAs) for hundreds of thousands of disabled people on sickness benefit. WCAs are face to face interviews carried out by healthcare professionals employed by Atos Healthcare to assess disabled people’s entitlement to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA, a sickness benefit that has replaced the old Incapacity Benefit). Each existing recipient of Incapacity Benefit is now being assessed for eligibility for ESA, at the rate of some 11,000 people per week. WCAs have been the subject of serious criticism by all relevant stakeholders in civil society including doctors and NGOs working on behalf of disabled people.
The present case concerns some of the problems with the system as experienced by people with mental health problems. Although medically trained, Atos HCPs typically have very limited knowledge of mental health. The interviews are often hurried, and rely on applicants to explain the limitations on their ability to work. The High Court yesterday granted permission to two disabled people to bring a claim for judicial review against the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to challenge the operation of the Work Capability Assessment. Atos Healthcare, tests around 11,000 incapacity benefit claimants a week under a £100m a year contract with the Department of Work and Pensions. The company has been criticised by MPs for its “flawed” approach which has left thousands of disabled people wrongly denied benefits and has become a lightning rod for criticism of the government’s welfare reforms.
Earlier this year, a coalition of pressure groups unveiled a campaign against three controversial sponsors of the London Olympics, accusing them of using the Games to “greenwash” unethical corporate activities. The coalition – bringing together protest groups campaigning against Olympic sponsors Dow Chemical, BP and Rio Tinto – is chaired by Meredith Alexander, who quit as a commissioner of the London 2012 sustainability watchdog over Dow’s $100m (£63m) deal with the International Olympic Committee and its agreement with London organisers to fund the £7m wrap that will surround the stadium.
Dow is one of 11 international Olympic sponsors who have global marketing rights to the Games. They each pay an estimated $100 million for a four-year cycle covering a winter and summer Games. The company signed up in July 2010 so London is its first sponsorship of any Games. The Bhopal disaster was a gas leak incident in India, considered one of the world’s worst industrial catastrophes which occurred on the night of December 2–3, 1984 at the Union Carbide India Plant,Bhopal, India. A leak of methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals from the plant resulted in the exposure of hundreds of thousands of people. The toxic substance made its way in and around the shantytowns located near the plant. The official immediate death toll was 2,259 and the government of Madhya Pradesh has confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release.
Dow denies the claims, arguing it was neither the owner nor operator of Union Carbide, the plant’s owner at the time of the disaster, and that the company had divested of its Indian assets by the time Dow acquired it in 1999. Dow says the legal case was resolved in 1989 when Union Carbide settled with the Indian government for $470 million, and that all responsibility for the factory now rests with the government of the state of Madhya Pradesh, which now owns the site.In June 2010, it was reported that convictions over a gas plant leak that killed thousands of people in 1984 in the Indian city of Bhopal had been heavily criticised by campaigners. Amnesty International described the two-year sentences for eight people as “too little, too late”. The convictions are the first since the disaster at the Union Carbide plant – the world’s worst industrial accident. The eight Indians, all former plant employees, were convicted of “death by negligence”. Nityanand Jayaraman, of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal campaign group, has said that the punishment imposed on Union Carbide was wholly inadequate. An academic lawyer has even commented that blaming Dow for the chemical disaster might be akin to blaming Germany for World War II.
Overall, the expectations that our society has for the criminal justice system is to punish and rehabilitate individuals who commit crime. Punishment and rehabilitation are also two of the four acknowledged objectives of the criminal justice system, with deterrence and incapacitation being the others. Globally punishment has always been the primary goal to achieve when dealing with individuals who commit acts of crime. However many argue that the lessons of Bhopal have still to be learned. With increasing regularity, similar scenarios continue to be played out around the world. Environmental disasters—both chronic and immediate—caused by irresponsible corporate practices are said to be becoming more frequent. Transnational corporations have learned to downplay damage, and to focus attention and liability on the local company in order to elude criminal and/or civil liability.The traditional approach taken by governmental enforcement agencies to deter and punish corporate crime is a multifaceted one. However, a corporation cannot be jailed, feel shame, nor possess a traditional sense of mens rea. In fact, the deterrence of corporate crime depends entirely upon the deterrence of individual employees. Over time, the criminal justice system also provided for both more severe penalties and means of investigation that the civil enforcement system did not. The purpose of special/specific deterrence is to instill fear on the offender so that they will not commit future crime. Others argue that rehabilitation is a more permanent fix in deterring crime. Rehabilitation programs can help previous offenders to become re-integrated into the community and give them a sense of being. Aside from the bright blue and pink surface of the hockey pitches, Dow has stepped in, in the 2012 London Olympics, to provide the wrap that adorns the outside of the main Olympic stadium after the London organisers could not find the 7 million pounds to give the finishing touch to what was a rather industrial-looking stadium.
While many corporate backers of the Olympics hope for the very best, Dow Chemical is taking a decidedly hard-nosed approach to its sponsorship in the face of criticism over its links with the Bhopal disaster. “This is an investment, not a sponsorship,” George Hamilton, the Dow executive in charge of its Olympic operations told Reuters in an interview as he rejected the Bhopal criticism as “inappropriate”. Other corporate sponsors include Coca Cola and McDonalds who also have extensive records in corporate social responsibility.
