Kyriakakis has for some time focused on the topic of corporate criminal liability under international law. Thus, it is highly beneficial to find her views collated and well-presented in this seminal book with a specific focus on the industry's responsibility for the atrocity. The term “atrocity law” is the international criminal law's ancient pedigree, and “industry” is any commercial activity and involves senior management (pp. 2 and 6). The book analyses examples of corporations previously implicated in international crimes; for example, the Nuremberg Trials’ prosecution of German industrialists and the Rwanda Tribunal's prosecution of corporate media executives. Kyriakakis argues that “industry does and ought to fall within the purview of international criminal law, in terms of both individual and corporate responsibility” (p. 4).
The book is structured into six chapters. Chapter 1 focuses on the liability of transnational corporations under international human rights law. The chapter identifies “the accountability gap”, namely that foreign investment and company laws are inadequate to address transnational corporations’ gross human rights violations (pp. 13–25). The international response to corporate accountability remains limited to the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. There are also jurisdictional and practical limitations that create barriers to the inclusion of corporate accountability in international criminal law, most importantly complementarity and impunity challenges: the former being that the International Criminal Court (ICC) operates as a complement to the national legal system designed to deal with international crimes, while the latter considers that states may be either unwilling or unable to refer the perpetrators of such crimes to the ICC (pp. 125–34).
In Chapter 2, Kyriakakis demonstrates how industry was a key target of the trial programmes adopted at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials. In Chapter 3, Kyriakakis acknowledges that “the ICC is beleaguered with criticisms of varying kinds and so the appetite to widen the Court's ambit may be particularly low” (p. 136). From Chapters 4 to 6, Kyriakakis expands her argument further, asserting that it is both feasible and desirable for transitional justice mechanisms, state and non-state actors, and national and international courts and tribunals to enforce atrocity law in cases involving corporate officers and corporations. This illustrates the key limitation of this book; that is, it does not account for differences between corporations and types of responsibilities. For example, can a transnational defence corporation diverting arms to illicit markets or armed conflicts be found complicit in international crimes, whether overseen by its officers or agents? There have been few successful domestic prosecutions of arms traders; Kyriakakis cites the Dutch case, Public Prosecutor v. Guus Kouwenhoven (pp. 165–7). However, we must ask: how can atrocity law be applied to the defence industry when it is exempted from almost all national and international laws under the pretext of national security? The UN has the Arms Trade Treaty, but it lacks enforcement. Overall, this book is an excellent scholarly source and an essential reading on corporate criminal liability. It also aptly complements the project to universalise international law.
Competing interests
The author declares none.
