Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 52 (2020)
Crime as Cognitive Constraint
person’s dignity. 293 International criminal jurisprudence on incitement
similarly betrays this difficulty in their unclear and inconsistent
application of evidentiary standards and causation analyses in
prosecuting speakers. 294
Challenges in this area can be partly resolved depending on the
structure of the tort liability adopted. For instance, if strict liability is
adopted, then the problem of identifying non-users affected by speech
on the platform is reduced. In any case, tort law has a looser causation
requirement than criminal law.
C.
Design
An international mechanism can provide a cohesive conceptual
template to assess corporate wrongdoing. For Steinitz, an ICCJ can
play a “universalizing and harmonizing role.” 295 The definition of
transnational corporate activity under the draft BHR treaty can be
adopted. Under article 1(3), business activities refer to “any economic
activity of transnational corporations and other business enterprises,
including but not limited to productive or commercial activity,
undertaken by a natural or legal person, including activities undertaken
by electronic means.” There is merit in using this definition for an
international tort liability considering the increasing number of
corporations that are not characterized by the traditional triggers of
market entry into a host state. 296
To bring about an ICCJ, Steinitz proposes the adoption of either
one of two treaties: one treaty modeled after the Rome Statute creating
the ICCJ (“ICCJ Statute”), and another treaty modeled after the
Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral
Awards (“ICCJ enforcement treaty”). 297 These treaties involve a
separate membership system:
293. See JEREMY WALDRON, THE HARM IN HATE SPEECH 5 (Harvard University
Press 2012).
294. See INCITEMENT ON TRIAL, supra note 128, at 8 (Cambridge University
Press, 2017); GORDON, supra note 28, at 388; See also Domino, supra note
284 (explaining how this problem of identifying rightsholders or non-users
affected by content moderation will similarly besiege the design of
operational-level grievance mechanisms in the platform context).
295. Steinitz, supra note 240, at 159.
296. But see Sebastian Smart, Draft Treaty on Business and Human Rights:
A Digital Environment Perspective (Aug. 14, 2019) (discussing the
this
definition),
problem
of
https://www.cambridge.org/core/blog/2019/08/14/draft-treaty-onbusiness-and-human-rights-a-digital-environment-perspective/
[https://perma.cc/HKD7-PEF7].
297. See Steinitz, supra note 240, at 145.
194