While businesses and their off icials are sometimes directly and immediately responsible for human rights abuses, allegations are frequently made about their complicity in such crimes.
The ICJ has convened an Expert Legal Panel to develop the legal and public policy meaning of corporate complicity in the worst violations of international human rights and humanitarian law that amount to international crimes.
Composed of eight eminent lawyers, this legal Panel is the first of its kind on corporate complicity. It will help to clarify the practical content and limits of complicity – an area of uncertainty and confusion. The Panel will develop legal principles to explain when companies should be held liable in law for complicity in international crimes and, where the acts are not sufficient to attract legal liability, whether companies should nevertheless be considered responsible as a matter of international public policy.
The Panel will establish clear legal guidelines for businesses, NGOs, governments and the United Nations, thereby enabling them to identify when businesses have crossed the line and have become participants in international crimes.
Complicity international crimes-Publications-2006 (full text, PDF)
Yesterday Secretary-General Nicholas Howen gave a speech at the ‘Business and Human Rights’ Conference in Copenhagen on why there is a need to develop clear, common and binding global rules on corporate accountability and human rights.
On 21 September 2005, the Danish Section of the International Commission of Jurists will host an event on Business & Human Rights.
On 21 September 2005, the Danish Section of the International Commission of Jurists will host an event on Business & Human Rights.
21 September 2005
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