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Results for destruction and pillage

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Author: Stewart, James G.

Title: Corporate War Crimes: Prosecuting Pillage of Natural Resources

Summary: Pillage means theft during war. Although the prohibition against pillage dates to the Roman Empire, pillaging is a modern war crime that can be enforced before international and domestic criminal courts. Following World War II, several businessmen were convicted for commercial pillage of natural resources. And although pillage has been prosecuted in recent years, commercial actors are seldom held accountable for their role in fuelling conflict. Reviving corporate liability for pillaging natural resources is not simply about protecting property rights during conflict — it can also play a significant role in preventing atrocity. Since the end of the Cold War, the illegal exploitation of natural resources has become a prevalent means of financing conflict. In countries including Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Iraq, Liberia, Myanmar, and Sierra Leone, the illicit trade in natural resources has not only created incentives for violence, but has also furnished warring parties with the finances necessary to sustain some of the most brutal hostilities in recent history. In Corporate War Crimes, available below in its second edition, law professor James G. Stewart offers a roadmap of the law governing pillage as applied to the illegal exploitation of natural resources by corporations and their officers. The text traces the evolution of the prohibition against pillage from its earliest forms through the Nuremburg trials to today’s national laws and international treaties. In doing so, Stewart provides a long-awaited blueprint for prosecuting corporate plunder during war. Corporate War Crimes seeks to guide investigative bodies, war crimes prosecutors, and judges engaged with the technicalities of pillage. It should also be useful for advocates, political institutions, and companies interested in curbing resource wars.

Details: New York: Open Society Institute, 2011. 162p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 20, 2011 at: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/justice/articles_publications/publications/pillage-manual-20101025/pillage-manual-2nd-edition-2011.pdf

Year: 2011

Country: International

URL: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/justice/articles_publications/publications/pillage-manual-20101025/pillage-manual-2nd-edition-2011.pdf

Shelf Number: 123066

Keywords:
Archaeological Thefts
Destruction and Pillage
Theft
Theft of Cultural Property
Theft of Natural Resources

Author: Stewart, James G.

Title: A Pragmatic Critique of Corporate Criminal Theory: Atrocity, Commerce and Accountability

Summary: Corporate criminal liability is a controversial beast. To a large extent, the controversies surround three core questions: first, whether there is a basic conceptual justification for using a system of criminal justice constructed for individuals against inanimate entities like corporations; second, what value corporate criminal liability could have given coexistent possibilities of civil redress against them; and third, whether corporate criminal liability has any added value over and above individual criminal responsibility of corporate officers. In this paper, I use examples from the frontiers of international criminal justice to criticize all sides of these debates. In particular, I harness the latent possibility of prosecuting corporate actors for the pillage of natural resources and for complicity through the supply of weapons, to highlight the shortcomings of corporate criminal theory to date. Throughout, I draw on principles derived from philosophical and legal pragmatism to reveal a set of recurring analytical flaws in this literature. These include: a tendency to presuppose a perfect single jurisdiction that overlooks globalization, the blind projection of local theories of corporate criminal responsibility onto global corporate practices; and a perspective that sometimes seems insensitive to the plight of the many who have fallen victim to corporate crime in the developing world. To begin anew, we need to embrace a pragmatic theory of corporate criminal liability that is forced upon us in a world as complex, unequal, and dysfunctional as that we presently inhabit.

Details: Vancouver, British Columbia: UBC Faculty of Law, 2012. 38p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 15, 2012 at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2152682

Year: 2012

Country: United States

URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2152682

Shelf Number: 126742

Keywords:
Corporate Crime
Destruction and Pillage
Offenses Against the Environment
Prosecution
Theft of Natural Resources