The Cost of International Accidents: Lessons from Bhopal and Amoco

This article deals with the economic effects generated by different conflict rules on incentives of economic agents. In particular, we ascertain the rules currently in force at the domestic level, and subsequently analyze each of them from an economic standpoint. Namely, we focus our analysis on the following rules: the so-called lex loci delicti, the lex loci laesionis, the forum shopping and the forum non conveniens, the optio legis principle, and the rule of victim’s freedom of choice.We exploit these rules to explain some famous cases, that is, the accident that occurred at the Bhopal plant in 1984 and the oil spill involving the supertanker Amoco Cadiz.