From (before) Bhopal to (after) BP: trade secrets and the right to know

This paper discuses the tensions between, on the one hand, workers' and communities' right to know about occupational and environmental hazards, and on the other hand, trade secrets and the rights of their corporate owners. We first discuss the role of trade secrets in economic development in the context of the benefits claimed for free markets. We then describe the ongoing struggles of workers and communities in the United States for access to information about hazards. The third section of the paper is a discussion of the reformulation of labor and occupational health and safety regulation as matters of human rights, again focusing on the situation in the United States. The final section is a discussion of the implications of the human rights approach for the occupational and environmental health practitioner. Although the paper focuses primarily on the U.S. experience, we believe that the lessons learned may be broadly applicable.