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- Corporate responsibility for industrial incidents
Corporate responsibility for industrial incidents

This free course explores the law on corporate responsibility for industrial incidents looking at the UK law, impact of globalisation and exploring Bhopal as a case study.
Course learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
- explain the development of civil liability for the physical harm caused to workers by business activity and outline the health and safety regime in the UK
- explain the basics of legal accountability in the English legal system, as achieved by way of prosecutions using the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (‘the 2007 Act’) and give a reasoned view as to whether the 2007 Act is likely to significantly improve the CSR of businesses across industry sectors with UK-based management
- distinguish between the approaches taken to corporate manslaughter in different jurisdictions
- undertake independent learning and research to evaluate and interrogate a case study
- explain the development of principles of international and human rights law that have relevance to safe working practices and the role of CSR policies in this context.
You can start this course right now without signing-up. Click on any of the course content sections below to start at any point in this course.
If you want to be able to track your progress, earn a free Statement of Participation, and access all course quizzes and activities, sign-up.
Course content
- Introduction
- Learning outcomes
- 1 Workplace incidents in the UK
- 2 A historical perspective: The development of business accountability from the nineteenth century
- 2 A historical perspective: The development of business accountability from the nineteenth century
- 2.1 Economic and political doctrine of laissez-faire
- 2.2 Development of employment law and employers' liability
- 2.3 Development of employers' duty of care
- 2.4 Imposition of vicarious liability
- 2.5 Statutory health and safety regime – a summary
- 3 Corporate manslaughter
- 4 Corporate responsibility in an international context
- 4 Corporate responsibility in an international context
- 4.1 Comparative examples of legislating to prevent corporate killings
- 4.2 The impact of globalisation on corporate accountability for industrial incidents
- 4.3 The application of international law and human rights principles to industrial incidents
- 4.4 The role of CSR in this context
- 5 Case Study: Bhopal
- 5 Case Study: Bhopal
- 5.1 Background to Bhopal
- 5.2 The incident and its consequences
- 5.3 Safety issues at the plant
- 5.4 The people affected by the Bhopal incident
- 5.5 Environmental damage from the Bhopal plant
- 5.6 Corporate responsibility for the Bhopal plant
- 5.7 The immediate responses to the gas leak at Bhopal
- 5.8 Legal accountability for the Bhopal gas leak
- 5.9 Liability for the contamination at Bhopal
- 5.10 What is there to prevent another Bhopal?
- Conclusion
- Keep on learning
- References
- Acknowledgements
- This site has Copy Reuse Tracking enabled - see our FAQs for more information.
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8 hours study
Level 3: Advanced
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