Tackling an era of innocence

Luis Moreno Ocampo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, had previously announced possible plans of undertaking investigations on the role played by entrepreneurs in financing violent conflicts in which core international crimes such as crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide have been committed. However, till this day investigations of this kind have not taken place. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the current impunity to gross human rights violations by corporations, is what calls for the need of extending human rights obligations and accountability to TNCs directly.

It is within this area that this thesis will seek to explore whether in the future, the ICC could provide for an effective legal avenue to directly hold corporations criminally responsible. Not only for the grave violations of the core international crimes found within the statute of the court that are committed by individual corporate agents, but also those crimes that materialize through the activities of the TNC as an entity. The focus is on the core crimes that currently fall within the jurisdiction of the ICC.