Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 52 (2020)
Crime as Cognitive Constraint
there is no functional equivalent of a prosecutor to speak of. 301 Instead,
“the party responsible for ‘prosecuting’ the claim is the same at the
international and national levels – the plaintiffs.” 302 This also supports
her position to vest exclusive jurisdiction in the ICCJ and exclude the
requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies for admissibility. The
draft BHR treaty, if it takes effect, may change this assessment.
Nonetheless, other kinds of admissibility thresholds may be
incorporated. Weighing the perceived advantages of international tort
liability against its anticipated challenges, there is reason to conclude
that, at the least, international tort liability merits further exploration.
V. Conclusion
As regulatory approaches are currently being explored,
policymakers should recognize the “implicit central object” of
platforms, at least in their early days – the Western, white man. Such
technology was “not developed with partly free countries like Kenya [or
Myanmar] in mind.” 303 With this article, I aimed to show how this gap
in perspective can impact incitement landscapes. The Facebook
dilemma illustrates how platforms can be a potent – even deadly – force
in transitional countries where public infrastructure is weak, democracy
is fragile, and atrocious acts are unfolding. In such contexts, the need
to balance competing values of expression and safety becomes more
pressing, with the scales tipping towards the latter. This article does
not pretend to provide a magic formula on how to strike this balance;
it does, however, aim to convince how corporations can be required to
do so.
Notably, Facebook’s ban of Myanmar’s Commander-in-Chief from
the platform was not prompted by an official directive from the US
government (as home state) or the UN. 304 Facebook was pressured by
the court of public opinion. 305 However, companies’ profit motive will
not always align with the public interest, and the court of public
opinion cannot solely be relied upon as the means to regulate corporate
involvement in mass atrocity crimes. Thus, there seems to be merit in
legally regulating corporate behavior.
This article aimed to set the tone for such future conversations. It
lays out the conceptual landscape necessary to draw a regulatory
framework for companies “present” in mass atrocity settings,
“fostering” atrocity crimes. Facebook’s role in Myanmar’s incitement
landscape displays other modalities of harm that unsettle current
301. See Steinitz, supra note 240, at 160.
302. Id.
303. Nyabola, supra note 97, at 200-201.
304. See FACEBOOK, supra note 235.
305. See id.
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