Genocide and Other International Crimes by Unincorporated Groups: Will There Be Loopholes for Them in the African Court?
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Excerpt
Corporate criminal liability may fill a gap in the traditional framework for punishing individual actors to deter mass atrocities. Corporate policies, according to many scholars, reward and coordinate the activities of natural persons who might have acted differently as individuals. The argument of this chapter is that the same may be true of organizations other than corporations, and that closing the many gaps left in the net cast around crimes against humanity and war crimes will require holding noncorporate organizations accountable in court.
At the Nuremberg Trial, US prosecutor Robert Jackson famously compared aggression to assault with bare fists, which was a crime under all "civilized" laws, and he argued that multiplying the offense by a million and adding machine guns and explosives to the mix was no defense.' Similarly, the hiring of "hit men" or the inflaming of social tensions to the point of assault or riot is also an offense under civilized laws. The question arises, does crossing national borders and multiplying the scale of the offense by thousands or millions - while adding missiles, mortars, and tanks to the mix - immunize from penal remedies what would otherwise be an offense?
ISBN
9781108422734
Publication Date
2019
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Keywords
African Court of Justice, human rights, genocide
Disciplines
Human Rights Law | International Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Hannibal Travis, Genocide and Other International Crimes by Unincorporated Groups: Will There Be Loopholes for Them in the African Court?, in THE AFRICAN COURT OF JUSTICE AND HUMAN AND PEOPLES' RIGHTS IN CONTEXT: DEVELOPMENTS AND CHALLENGES 285, 313 (Charles Jalloh, Kamari Clarke, & Vincent Nmehielle eds., Cambridge University Press, April 2019).
