The article raised issues that will become increasingly significant in defining international commerce and related exchanges. I would dichotomize the issues into human disasters and financial disasters. The human tragedies are those related to life while the financials disasters are those that do not involve life but rather financial plundering, misrepresentation or other criminal activities. I believe that both of these ‘disasters’ will require international governance standards.

My experience has strongly indicated that the nature and complexity of financial and political contacts between nations has increased and will further exponentially increase. These transactions that began as simple import of foreign goods now involve the employment or outsourcing of large skilled labor pools engaged in handling of protected corporate data and private tax, financial and medical information. This evolution in international commerce will require governance in many areas not limited to trade secret protection and personal privacy currently not in place.

The impact on quality and loss of life as you rightly stated is not elevated until a ‘major incident’ occurs. The memory of the December 3, 1984 Bhopal, India disaster caused by Union Carbide that killed approximately 3,800 people and disabling 2,600 others is still etched in my memory. The Bhopal, India case was eventually sent back to India, after several appeals in Manhattan urging that the legal matter should be settled in US. The matter was subsequently not settled until 1989 almost a full five years later due to jurisdiction and other beaurocratic discussions. I can only wonder what became of those families in the interim after loosing their primary income providers without adequate disaster relief.