National Surveys:
Category I: Crimes Against Humanity
Category II: Forced Labor/Enslavement
Category III: War Crimes Part I
Category III: War Crimes Part II
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Crime, Commerce and Conflict
Legal Remedies for Private Sector Liability for Grave Breaches of International Law
The 16 surveys map the ways in which international criminal and humanitarian law has become more widely applicable to business entities than previously thought, and confirms the view that it is possible to hold business entities accountable for grave human rights abuses, such as genocide, war crimes and torture as well as other crimes against humanity.
To find out more, access the individual surveys simply by clicking on the country name in the left margin. Each survey is a pdf-file. In addition, some case summaries can be found on our searchable web site www.fafo.no/liabilities.
In most responses contained in the surveys only a basic introduction to the specific legal issue has been provided in response to each question. The objective of the surveys has been to provide policy makers in government and business, as well as affected communities, a reference point for further investigation of the laws applicable to grave human rights abuse. The nature of such a survey is that complexities and distinctions for specific situations may not have been entirely addressed. The survey texts and report do not and are not intended to provide legal advice on any of the issues covered. All translations of legal texts are non-official and do not carry official legal weight. Readers wishing to pursue specific issues further should consult a lawyer.
Each survey is a draft. Input from comments and peer reviews will be used to update the surveys until 1 December 2006. If you have a comment on a particular point in the survey text, please send it to Mark Taylor, Project Leader; mark.taylor @ fafo.no.
The survey was sponsored by the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Background
In wars and dictatorships, individual perpetrators (e.g. government soldiers or armed rebels) may inflict harm on civilians that amounts to breaches of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) or International Criminal Law (ICL) - namely war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, genocide, or enslavement (forced labour). In peace times, crimes against humanity and genocide may also be committed in dictatorships or insurgencies. Individual perpetrators may be prosecuted later for such conduct in an international war crimes tribunal, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), or in special purpose courts such as the ad hoc tribunals established for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, or the Special Court in Sierra Leone.
When business entities operate in conflict zones or in repressive states, they run the risk of committing violations or, more likely, becoming implicated in the criminal or illicit activity of others. German and Japanese industrialists, for example, became entangled in the criminal activity of their governments during the Second World War. In Nuremberg, prominent German industrialists were prosecuted for war crimes, including the use of forced labour in their factories, plunder and the exploitation of property in occupied territories, as well as the provision of the deadly gas for use in the death camps. Similarly, a British military tribunal prosecuted Japanese mining officials as part of the Far East war crimes trials.
Unfortunately, this sort of behaviour appears to continue today. For example, a United Nations Panel of Experts identified a group of multinational enterprises alleged to have participated in the plunder of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Such illicit plunder helped sustain wars in that country which resulted in the deaths of over 3 million people due to violence and war-driven famine and disease. The reports paint a detailed picture of the supply of combatants involved in the war and of the role of businesses, both local and multinational, in the networks built to facilitate the exploitation of the DRC's natural wealth. Yet, the UN reports themselves failed to adequately respond to the problem of what laws may have been broken, if any.
The surveys and analysis of Commerce, Crime and Conflict attempt
to provide greater clarity and definition to the question of what types
of activities might lead to liability under international law. The report
and the surveys are also available on the Business
and International Crimes website, which also includes descriptions
of the types of conduct that constitute breaches of IHL and ICL and outlines
the relevant jurisprudence, both national and international, where business
entities or individual economic actors are alleged to have breached international
law. Commerce, Crime and Conflict is meant to serve as a guide
for all of those interested in further defining the rights and responsibilities
of economic actors in war and dictatorship, including victims and affected
communities, lawyers and legal researchers, advocates and campaigners,
and businesses, large and small.
