Seeking to address the problem of corporate involvement in grave human rights abuse, i.e. genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, this study explores the desirability and feasibility of subjecting business enterprises to regulation through international criminal law.
With industrialization and globalization, corporations acquired the capacity to influence social life for good or for ill. Yet, corporations are not traditional objects of criminal law. Justified by notions of personal moral guilt, criminal norms have been judged inapplicable to fictional persons, who ‘think’ and ‘act’ through human beings. The expansion of new corporate criminal liability (CCL) laws since the mid-1990s challenges this assumption. Our volume surveys current practice on CCL in 15 civil and common law jurisdictions, exploring the legal conditions for liability, the principles and options for sanctioning, and the procedures for investigating, charging and trying corporate offenders. It considers whether municipal CCL laws are converging around the notion of ‘corporate culture’, and, in any case, the implications of CCL for those charged with keeping corporations, and other legal entities, out of trouble.
Corporate Criminal Liability is on the rise worldwide: More and more legal systems now include genuinely criminal sanctioning for legal entities. The various regulatory options available to national criminal justice systems, their implications and their constitutional, economic and psychological parameters are key questions addressed in this volume. Specific emphasis is put on procedural questions relating to corporate criminal liability, on alternative sanctions such as blacklisting of corporations, on common corporate crimes and on questions of transnational criminal justice.
Presently, many of the greatest debates and controversies in international criminal law concern modes of liability for international crimes. The state of the law is unclear, to the detriment of accountability for major crimes and of the uniformity of international criminal law. The present book aims at clarifying the state of the law and provides a thorough analysis of the jurisprudence of international courts and tribunals, as well as of the debates and the questions these debates have left open. Renowned international criminal law scholars analyze, in discrete chapters, the modes of liability one by one; for each mode they identify the main trends in the jurisprudence and the main points of controversy. An introduction addresses the cross-cutting issues, and a conclusion anticipates possible evolutions that we may see in the future. The research on which this book is based was undertaken with the Geneva Academy.
This timely book explores the prospect of prosecuting corporations or individuals within the business world for conduct amounting to international crime. Joanna Kyriakakis surveys the state of the art in the field, highlighting the case for the international criminal justice project to engage more fully with the role industry can play in atrocity. From the post World War II era to contemporary international criminal courts and tribunals and the activities of domestic criminal justice agencies, this book analyses cases and international law reform efforts aimed at accounting for business involvement in international crimes. The major debates and ensuing challenges are examined, arguing that corporate accountability under international criminal law is crucial in achieving the objectives of international criminal justice. Students, practitioners and academics of international criminal law will find this a beneficial read, particularly through its engagement with the key contemporary debate around the extension of international criminal law to business actors. The exploration of how to address the global governance gap and better account for human rights abuses in transnational corporate activity will also make this an invigorating book for business and human rights scholars.
Anchored by the normative framework, this book aims to clarify the basis for individual criminal liability for persons who finance entities that perpetrate core crimes. The objective of this monograph is to clarify the rules to enable international courts and tribunals to identify the extent to which individual criminal liability attaches to the financing of core crimes, as well as the legal basis for such liability. By clarifying the criminal liability of individual who finance entities that perpetrate core crimes, this book also seeks to clarify the mental elements of the mode of liability of aiding and abetting. This is achieved through a thorough analysis of the applicable rules in the international arena, as well as through the comparative analysis.
This book tackles one of the most contentious aspects of international criminal law – the modes of liability. At the heart of the discussion is the quest for balance between the accused's individual contribution and the collective nature of mass offending. The principle of legality demands that there exists a well-defined link between the crime and the person charged with it. This is so even in the context of international offending, which often implies 'several degrees of separation' between the direct perpetrator and the person who authorises the atrocity. The challenge is to construct that link without jeopardising the interests of justice. This monograph provides the first comprehensive treatment of complicity within the discipline and beyond. Extensive analysis of the pertinent statutes and jurisprudence reveals gaps in interpreting accessorial liability. Simultaneously, the study of complicity becomes a test for the general methods and purposes of international criminal law. The book exposes problems with the sources of law and demonstrates the absence of clearly defined sentencing and policy rationales, which are crucial tools in structuring judicial discretion. Awarded The Paul Guggenheim Prize in International Law 2017!
This book is concerned with the commercial exploitation of armed conflict; it is about money, war, atrocities and economic actors, about the connections between them, and about responsibility. It aims to clarify the legal framework that defines these connections and gives rise to criminal or, in some instances, civil responsibility, referring both to mechanisms for international criminal justice, such as the International Criminal Court, and domestic systems. It considers which economic actors among individuals, businesses, governments and States should be held accountable and before which forum. Additionally, it addresses the question of how to recover illegally acquired profits and redirect them to benefit the victims of war. The chapters shine a critical light on the options provided by a network of laws to ensure that the 'great industrialists' of our time, who find economic opportunities in the war-ravaged lives of others, are unable to pursue those opportunities with impunity.
This book examines the rapid development of the fundamental concept of a crime in international criminal law from a comparative law perspective. In this context, particular thought has been given to the catalyzing impact of the criminal law theory that has developed in major world legal systems upon the crystallization of the substantive part of international criminal law. This study offers a critical overview of international and domestic jurisprudence with regard to the construal of the concept of a crime (actus reus, mens rea, defences, modes of liability) and exposes roots of confusion in international criminal law through a comprehensive comparative analysis of substantive criminal laws in selected legal jurisdictions.