Human Rights and Business: Is International Economic Crime an option?

In concert with CIVICA Alliance, the faculty of the Sciences Po Law School is honored to host Professor Enrico Basile for a Graduate Seminar.

Enrico Basile, Assistant Professor of Criminal Law and White-Collar Crime, Università commerciale “Luigi Bocconi”, Milano, Italy.

Business activities may turn into human rights violations, either directly or indirectly, resulting in harm to individuals and communities. Direct infringements include, e.g., exploitation of workers, while indirect ones involve public or private partners/associates of the business actor to do the dirty work (e.g., beating trade unionists to prevent strikes). The very notion of corporate social responsibility encompasses the idea of respecting human rights in these instances, thus holding businesses accountable for their misbehavior.

Among the remedies to address this issue, a key-role can be played by criminal law at various levels. In this respect, some scholars advanced the concept of international economic crime, i.e. business-related corporate misconduct which differs from (merely) transnational crime in that it refers to the perpetration of core international crimes (namely genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity) by corporations or other business entities acting as authors or accomplices. The debate is whether International Criminal Law should apply to private entities such as corporations. The seminar will seek to answer that question and explore the potential implications and challenges of holding corporations accountable under the Rome Statute.