Industrial disasters—will self-regulation work?

Abstract The worst ever industrial accident, at Bhopal, India, in December 1984, is now seen to have had very positive consequences. This paper deals with two significant results that have flowed from industry's reaction to that dreadful accident. Firstly, the community's ‘right to know’ is now being accepted worldwide, industry recognizing that it has an obligation to tell the public what is happening within its gates. In many countries legislation is now coming into effect that gives this concept the force of law. Every company now has the responsibility for ensuring that its operations are safe and hold no risk to the community. Secondly, and this follows from the foregoing concept, there is now a powerful movement towards ‘self-regulation’ by manufacturing companies. This is patently desirable, but will it be effective? The implications of self-regulation are assessed, and whilst industry should certainly do all that it can, it seems that legislation is still required, and the inspectorate can still serve a very valuable purpose. However, that role should be rather different to the role inspectors play at the moment.