Bhopal -- a wasted opportunity

It has taken more than a quarter of a century to bring the perpetrators of the worst industrial accident in history to justice. On June 7, a Bhopal court convicted eight former members of Union Carbide India's senior management over the horrific gas leak and sentenced them to two years in jail. They will also pay a fine of Rp100,000 $2,100.

The sentences are modest and provide little comfort to the thousands of victims who lost their lives or suffered grievous injuries when toxic gas spilled from a chemical plant owned by Union Carbide in Bhopal in central India in December 1984. The enormity of the tragedy should have prompted a swifter and...