Volume 6 : 1
Human Rights Challenges for Multinational Corporations Working and Investing in Conflict Zones
Corporate Complicity under International Criminal Law: A Case for Applying the Rome Statute to Business Behaviour
Regulating the Private Security Industry: Connecting the Public and the Private through Transnational Private Regulation
Ethical Accounting For The Conduct Of Private Military And Security Companies
False Extraterritoriality? Municipal and Multinational Jurisdiction over Transnational Corporations
Sunlight for the Heart of Darkness: Conflict Minerals and the First Wave of SEC Regulation of Social Issues
Shining Brightly? Human Rights and the Responsible Sourcing of Diamond and Gold Jewellery from High Risk and Conflict-Affected Areas
Corporate Human Rights Violations and Private International Law. A Facilitating Role for PIL or PIL as a Complicating Factor?
Human Rights Challenges for Multinational Corporations Working and Investing in Conflict Zones
Corporate Complicity under International Criminal Law: A Case for Applying the Rome Statute to Business Behaviour
Regulating the Private Security Industry: Connecting the Public and the Private through Transnational Private Regulation
Ethical Accounting For The Conduct Of Private Military And Security Companies
False Extraterritoriality? Municipal and Multinational Jurisdiction over Transnational Corporations
Sunlight for the Heart of Darkness: Conflict Minerals and the First Wave of SEC Regulation of Social Issues
Shining Brightly? Human Rights and the Responsible Sourcing of Diamond and Gold Jewellery from High Risk and Conflict-Affected Areas
Corporate Human Rights Violations and Private International Law. A Facilitating Role for PIL or PIL as a Complicating Factor?
Year
2012
Volume
6
Number
1
Page
14
Language
English
Court
Reference
A.K.D. HEYER, “Corporate Complicity under International Criminal Law: A Case for Applying the Rome Statute to Business Behaviour”, HRILD 2012, nr. 1, 14-55
Recapitulation
The author discusses criteria that should be used in assessing the behaviour of corporations and their employees under international criminal law as it stands today. She argues that corporate agents and employees may only be held individually responsible for international crimes if they knowingly create a specific risk that causes the ultimate crime to be committed and if responsibility for that risk can be imputed to them personally. In that regard, the author scrutinises the Nuremberg precedents, the ad hoc tribunals’ case law and general principles of criminal law. Based on her findings, she then contributes to the understanding of the Rome Statute by refining the actus reus and mens rea of article 25(3)(c) and (d). In particular, the author proposes that the additional, prima facie subjective elements in article 25(3) (c) and (d)(i) should best be interpreted objectively. Integrating further policy considerations and philosophical underpinnings, her conclusions aim at establishing normative parameters that should apply to corporate agents and employees who become involved in gross human rights violations amounting to international crimes. She argues that corporate agents and employees do not incur liability if they only create remote, non-specific risks that eventually result in ultimate harm. Moreover, creation of crime-specific risks may not be imputed to any employee but only to corporate agents who assume responsibility by transgressing their scope of duties or who act on their immediate or ultimate decision-making authority.
