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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intended for research purposes and do not constitute legal advice. Fafo
and IPA are not responsible for the content of linked web sites
Business and International Crimes
Recent Developments
April 2006
Guus van Kouwenhoven, 63, and a resident Dutch businessman and lumber
trader, is charged with war crimes. He is accused of supplying the former
President Taylor of Liberia with militia fighters from his lumber companies.
He is further charged with violating a United Nations embargo by smuggling
weapons into Liberia. His trial, held under a new mix of national and
international law, is drawing attention because it is the second time
a Dutch court is prosecuting a Dutch businessman for being involved with
human rights abuses on another continent.
>>
Read the full story here
Source: New York Times
December 2005
Frans van Anraat is a Dutch businessman who sold raw materials for the
production of chemical weapons to Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein.
He was prosecuted for delivering thousands of tons of raw materials for
chemical weapons to the former regime in Baghdad between 1984 and 1988.
The materials are suspected of being used in the 1988 chemical attack
on a Kurdish town that killed an estimated 5,000 civilians.
After his arrest and release in Italy in 1989, Van Anraat fled to Iraq,
where he lived until Saddam Hussein's regime fell in 2003, Van Anraat
returned to the Netherlands. He was arrested on December 6, 2004 and charged
as an accomplice to war crimes and genocide. On December 23, he was sentenced
to fifteen years in prison. A Dutch court found him guilty of aiding war
crimes, as "his deliveries facilitated the attacks", including
one with mustard gas on Halabja in northern Iraq." He cannot counter
with the argument that this would have happened even without his contribution,"
the presiding judge said.
However, the judges ruled that van Anraat was not aware of the genocidal
intentions of the Iraqi regime when he sold the ingredients for poison
gas. The court argued the charges of complicity to genocide could not
be substantiated. The public prosecutor has appealed the verdict.
April 2005
Stopping Banks from Hiding Human Rights Abusers' Money: A Recent Settlement
by Riggs Bank Highlights the Issue FindLaw columnist, BIC contributor,
and U. Washington law professor Anita Ramasastry discusses some of the
legal mechanisms that can be used to try to stop banks from hiding human
rights' abusers money -- money that rightfully should belong to their
victims. Ramasastry explains the role of Spanish criminal law, the U.S.'s
Alien Tort Claims Act, and the International Criminal Court. In doing
so, she covers cases involving, among others, victims of former dictators
Augusto Pinochet and Ferdinand Marcos. >>
Available here
Source: FindLaw
March 2005
Recent court decisions in Japan have, for the first time, mandated that
the Japanese government and select businesses pay compensation to South
Korean and Chinese workers that were forced to labour in Japan during
World War II. In March 2004, the Niigata District Court ordered the Japanese
government and the Niigata-based harbour transport company Rinko Corp
to pay 88 million yen to 12 Chinese plaintiffs, including 10 former labourers
forced to work at Niigata port during the war. The ruling represented
the first time that a Japanese court had ordered the state to compensate
for wartime forced labour. The ruling contrasts with the outcome of a
similar lawsuit in 2002, when the Fukuoka District Court ruled for the
first time that the Japanese government and a mining company both committed
a crime in using wartime slave labour, but ordered only the company to
pay compensation, agreeing with the government's argument that it cannot
be held responsible. According to the Japanese Foreign Ministry, 39,000
Chinese were brought to Japan and forced to work during World War II.
Further developments transpired in July 2004, when the Hiroshima High
Court overturned a July 2002 lower court ruling and ordered Nishimatsu
Construction Co. Ltd. to pay five Chinese plaintiffs a total of 27.5 million
yen in compensation. In passing judgment, the presiding judge said, "The
forced labour was an abuse of human rights."
In a separate case, the Hiroshima High Court ordered the Japanese government to pay damages to 40 South Korean plaintiffs who were forcibly brought to Hiroshima and forced to work at a Mitsubishi plant. About 2,800 people from South Korea were forced to work in Hiroshima, and many of them were victims of the atomic bomb, according to Kyodo news agency. The Hiroshima High Court ordered the Japanese government to pay the plaintiffs 1.2 million yen each in compensation.
Sources: Reuters, Kyodo news agency (Japan), BBC
25 February 2005
Information from the Washington Post: Washington, D.C.-based Riggs Bank
and two members of the bank's controlling Allbritton family yesterday
agreed to pay $9 million to victims of former Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet for the bank's role in concealing and spiriting Pinochet's money
out of Britain in 1999. A Spanish court agreed to dismiss criminal charges
against current and former directors and officers of the bank, including
the Allbrittons, in return for payment to the Salvador Allende Foundation,
established for victims of Pinochet's regime and their survivors. Riggs
will pay $8 million, while Joe L. Allbritton, who was chief executive
of the bank until 2001, and his son Robert, who is chief executive of
its holding company, will pay $1 million as part of the settlement with
Spanish officials. The agreement marks the first time the Allbrittons
have been held personally accountable for the money-laundering compliance
problems that have plagued Riggs for some time. It also marks the first
time that an institution or person other than the Chilean government has
been forced to pay compensation to Pinochet's victims.
A Senate investigative committee in July detailed efforts by Riggs officers
to have $1.6 million of Pinochet's money secretly transferred from Riggs's
London branch to Riggs Bank in Washington. Riggs also put Pinochet's money
into accounts held under aliases and took other measures to hide the identity
of his accounts and money transfers. According to a lawyer representing
Pinochet's victims, Riggs was culpable for helping Pinochet hide about
$8 million - roughly the total amount of funds Pinochet had at Riggs -
from the 1998 Spanish order freezing the former dictator's assets. The
complaint named Riggs's directors and officers, but Riggs was not named
in the complaint because corporations cannot be tried under criminal law
in Spain. >>
Read the full story here
14 December 2004
Earthrights International announced a landmark, tentative settlement
agreement with Unocal Corporation in several lawsuits brought over that
company's activities in Myanmar/Burma. The suits were brought by villagers
alleging that Unocal was complicit in serious crimes -- including forced
labor, rapes, and murder -- allegedly committed by Myanmar soldiers, in
the service of Unocal, along the route of a natural gas pipeline. Terms
of the settlement have not been disclosed, but in a joint statement the
two sides said that Unocal would pay the 15 plaintiffs an unspecified
amount of money and fund programs to improve living conditions for people
affected by the pipeline, as well as those "who may have suffered
hardships". The settlement is being lauded by human rights activists
as an important breakthrough in the effort to hold multinational companies
accountable in US courts for atrocities committed abroad. For more information
and links: >> The Earthrights
website
December 2004
As this report went to press, a federal district court in the Southern District of New York dismissed claims against a group of multinational corporations for their alleged roles in aiding and abetting apartheid in South Africa. The court dismissed the various lawsuits stating that aidor and abettor liability is not a recognized cause of action under the ATCA.
Memorandum Opinion and Order, In re South African Apartheid Litigation (S.D.N.Y.) November 29, 2004. MDL No. 1499. The court found that plaintiffs, victims of apartheid who sought more than $400 billion in damages through eight cases, had demonstrated "little that would lead this Court to conclude that aiding and abetting international law violations is itself an international law violation that is universally accepted as a legal obligation." The 43-page opinion dismisses actions filed under the ATCA in different federal courts. The cases were subsequently consolidated before Judge Sprizzo by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, under MDL No. 1499.
The complaints alleged that the companies benefited from the apartheid system's emphasis on maintaining a pool of black labour to serve the interests of the ruling white minority. The plaintiffs also charged that the companies supplied resources such as technology, money and oil to the South African government, or entities controlled by the government, and thus sustained the apartheid regime.
