Criminology at the intersections of oppression: Corporate involvement in international crimes and other GHRV by authoritarian regimes

• In Event: New Developments in International Crimes and Transitional Justice

Abstract

Corporate involvement in genocide, crimes against humanity and other gross human rights violations is an understudied form of corporate crime and an often overlooked actor in the study of international crimes. Looking at crimes committed by and under authoritarian regimes, the harmful roles of corporations are evident and their contribution to oppression, persecution and (mass) murder can take various forms. This study looks at the role of corporations in the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes and the role of the business sector in crimes committed during the Apartheid regime. It looks at the etiology of this involvement by using historical studies and interviews with the aim of understanding why conventional businesses become complicit in systematic atrocities. This question is relevant for the questions of why and how to hold corporations accountable in periods of transitional justice, but also relates to the observation that their involvement often goes unaccounted for in times of reconstruction and building or maintaining political stability.

Authors

• Wim Huisman, VU University Amsterdam

• Annika van Baar, VU University Amsterdam