Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 52 (2020)
Crime as Cognitive Constraint
to conceptualize various modalities of involvement. The proposal here
neither seeks to solve all business and human rights issues nor abandons
criminal law mechanisms, which are properly meant to try individuals
– and perhaps, in appropriate cases in the future, corporate entities –
responsible for serious international crimes. Instead, the object of this
article is to highlight how certain cases of corporate involvement in
mass atrocity crimes may not fit traditional models, which appear to
justify a broader network of international liabilities. For that purpose,
this section invites further thinking on how to harness tort principles
for different manifestations of corporate harm.
The tort liability set out here can potentially be brought before
Maya Steinitz’s proposed International Court of Civil Justice, an
international court that would adjudicate cross-border mass tort
involving the most serious harms. 239 In justifying its creation, Steinitz
discussed the “flawed” transnational mass tort resolution in Alien Tort
Statute (ATS)-type litigation, especially national courts’ reluctance to
exercise jurisdiction over foreign-cubed cases. 240 Beth Stephens similarly
argues that the “need to invoke international law to address ‘domestic’
violence implies a breakdown of domestic legal remedies.”241
Nonetheless, Steinitz is clear-eyed about the aim of an ICCJ. It does
not offer a “perfect solution;” rather, its creation should be justified by
“whether it would present a significant progress over existing reality.” 242
The tort proposal outlined here shares this objective— to carve out a
corporate liability that can close the gap in legal responsibility under
international law and accommodate different manifestations of
corporate harm in mass atrocities. This section builds on Steinitz’s work
by elaborating on the kinds of cases cognizable by the ICCJ.
Significantly, my reference to tort here does not necessarily call for
an international version of the ATS. Rather, the point of this exercise
is to open up the conceptual analogies offered by tort law. The proposed
liability contemplates corporate involvement in acts constituting Rome
Statute crimes, but where types of liability are structured around tort
law. Despite the variance in approach across jurisdictions, the essence
of tort law is the same: to provide recompense for a negligent or
239. See The Case for an International Court of Civil Justice, supra note 26,
at 75.
240. Foreign-cubed cases involve a case where the plaintiff, defendant
corporation, and the alleged injury occurred in a foreign jurisdiction.
MAYA STEINITZ, THE CASE FOR AN INTERNATIONAL COURT OF CIVIL
JUSTICE 95 (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
241. Beth Stephens, Conceptualizing Violence under International Law: Do
Tort Remedies Fit the Crime, 60 ALB. L. REV. 579, 593, 605 (1997)
(describing how criminal law and tort law regimes can “complement” each
other).
242. STEINITZ, supra note 240, at 16.
184