Theorizing and Understanding Corporate Involvement in Atrocity Crimes

Abstract Corporate involvement in atrocity crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, has become an important topic for ngo s, activists and scholars from different disciplines, often focusing on the important question how to achieve a better regulation of and accountability for corporate roles in atrocities. This contribution, instead, is focused on the aetiology of this phenomenon. A theoretical framework is proposed based on, on the one hand, what follows from criminological research on corporate crime, state crime and state-corporate crime and, on the other hand, in-depth case studies of three contexts: Nazi Germany (1933–1945), Apartheid South Africa (1948–1994) and the drc (1996–2016). The proposed framework identifies the motivational drivers, opportunity aspects, and elements of the (lack of) control that, together, can explain why that corporation became involved in atrocity crimes. The framework is intended to—through application to new case studies—improve knowledge about and understanding of corporate involvement in atrocity crimes and to expand the conceptual and theoretical understanding of this phenomenon.