Subjecting Corporations to the ICC Regime: Analyzing the Legal Counterarguments
THE REVIEW CONFERENCE AND THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, pp. 155-174, C. Burchard, O. Triffterer, J. Vogel, eds., Wolters Kluwer, 2010
26 Pages Posted: 25 Jan 2012
Date Written: January, 22 2012
Abstract
The proposal to include corporations in the ICC Statute is often put aside with the argument that such inclusion is at odds with legal paradigms. This contribution sets out the three relevant paradigms, namely public international law, the ICC system and in particular its complementarity principle, and criminal law. For each paradigm, the counterarguments are analyzed. The analysis shows that the most challenging counterarguments stem from the criminal law paradigm. Ongoing discussions addressing these counterarguments reveal that the choice whether or not to accept corporations as subjects of the ICC is not only a matter of extending the jurisdiction ratione personae of one particular court. More importantly, accepting corporations as subjects also has critical consequences for the nature and underlying theories of international criminal law as a separate field of law.
Keywords: International law, international criminal law, corporate responsibility, corporations, subjects, ICC, complementarity
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