822 HASTINGS LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 71:813 community’s increasing recognition that companies must be held accountable to both their domestic and international communities. To determine the liability of social media corporations today, the following Subparts untangle the relevant theories of corporate criminal liability and, specifically, the standard to apply for corporate complicity in human rights violations. A. CORPORATE CRIMINAL LIABILITY Today, corporations from all sectors operate “in countries where crimes against humanity and other gross human rights abuses occur.”62 Corporations “may be compelled to take a stand vis-à-vis the conflict or otherwise become involved in international crimes.”63 Some reports uncover corporations who knowingly assist governments, armed rebel groups, or other actors to commit gross human rights abuses.64 But more commonly, human rights abuses are often being committed prior to the corporation entering that country. Corporations, instead, may be exposed to international criminal liability by assisting or furthering the human rights abuses. Many domestic jurisdictions have imposed criminal liability on corporations based on various domestic violations involving, inter alia, environmental, tort, and labor laws.65 U.S. laws have advanced theories of corporate liability, for example the principle of respondeat superior, which borrows theories from tort law by holding an organization responsible for its employees’ actions.66 Notable examples under United States’ domestic law include: Chiquita’s payments to Colombian paramilitary groups who used the money to fund weapons and ammunition;67 Yahoo’s supply of internet records to the Chinese government, which led “to the identification and alleged torture of a human rights activist;”68 Unocal’s participation “in a Burmese gas pipeline construction project, whose security forces engaged in forced 62. Danielle Olson, Corporate Complicity in Human Rights Violations Under International Criminal Law, 1 DEPAUL INT’L HUM. RTS. J. 1, 1 (2015). 63. Antje K.D. Heyer, Corporate Complicity under International Criminal Law: A Case for Applying the Rome Statute to Business Behaviour, 6 HUM. RTS. & INT’L LEGAL DISCOURSE 14, 16 (2012). 64. See INT'L COMM'N OF JURISTS, supra note 18. 65. Ronald C. Slye, Corporations, Veils, and International Criminal Liability, 33 BROOK. J. INT’L L. 955, 957 (2008). 66. Michael E. Tigar, It Does the Crime but Not the Time: Corporate Criminal Liability in Federal Law, 17 AM. J. CRIM. L. 211, 227 (1990). 67. Alison Frankel, Chiquita Must Face Jury in Colombian Terror-Funding Case—Miami Judge, REUTERS (Jan. 4, 2018, 12:21 PM), https://www.reuters.com/article/legal-us-otc-chiquita/chiquita-must-face-jury-incolombian-terror-funding-case-miami-judge-idUSKBN1ET2C8. 68. Doug Cassel, Corporate Aiding and Abetting of Human Rights Violations: Confusion in the Courts, 6 NW. J. INT’L HUM. RTS. 304, 305 (2008); cf. Ewen MacAskill, Yahoo Forced to Apologise to Chinese Dissidents Over Crackdown on Journalists, GUARDIAN (Nov. 14, 2007, 10:37 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/nov/14/news.yahoo (reporting on the fallout produced from this controversy).

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