Corporations as Moral Agents: Trade-Offs in Criminal Liability and Human Rights for Corporations

This article argues that a common way of defending corporate criminal liability creates a dilemma: it provides a strong justification for giving human rights to corporations. This result follows from approaches to punishment and human rights which predicate each on the status of moral agency. In short, if corporations are moral agents in a sufficient sense to attract criminal liability, they are eligible holders of human rights. The article also discusses the doctrinal application of this philosophical claim. Drawing on US jurisprudence, it illustrates how the European Court of Human Rights might deploy corporate moral agency as a theoretical foundation for its otherwise weakly-reasoned attribution of human rights to corporations. If proponents of corporate criminal liability are dissatisfied with these conclusions, they face difficult policy trade-offs: they must abandon the doctrine, or adopt alternative approaches to punishment or human rights.     

Accountability for Corporate Human Rights Abuses: Lessons from the Possible Exercise of Dutch National Criminal Jurisdiction over Multinational Corporations

In the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, little emphasis has been put on the criminal law as a mechanism to hold corporations to account. From a doctrinal perspective, the main stumbling block for a more intensive use of the criminal law appears to be how to establish jurisdiction and liability with regard to corporate involvement in human rights violations in transnational supply-chains. On closer inspection, however, domestic criminal law offers surprising, although largely untested opportunities in this respect. Criminal liability could notably be based on violations of a corporate duty of care violation, whereas jurisdiction could, relatively non-controversially, be grounded on the principles of territoriality, nationality, and universality. The Dutch criminal law system is used as a case-study in this article.     

The Merowe Dam Project – When Does the Coin Flip from Legal Business Activity to Criminal Behavior? Reflections on the Concept of Guarantor’s Liablity in the Context of Transnational Business Activities

The individual liability of corporate officers for crimes that are often framed as transnational human rights abuses is much debated. While it seems that some standards of liability are developing in the field of international criminal law, standards of criminal liability in cases where the alleged crimes do not amount to international crimes remain to some extent unclear. This article will examine a concrete case that was investigated by the Frankfurt/Main prosecutor’s office. Additionally, it will be considered whether international soft law standards on corporate human rights due diligence have an influence on how the existing standards of guarantor’s liability, and especially that of principals (Geschäftsherrenhaftung), are to be interpreted in these cases.     

美国SARBANES-OXLEY2002法案刑事责任条款研究

本文分析了美国SARBANES -OXLEY2 0 0 2法案制定的背景、内容以及特点 ,认为法案的刑事责任条款呈现出四个特征 :集中在公司欺诈犯罪 ;注重刑事政策的运用 ;体现刑罚加重的趋势 ;重视量刑操作的细化。公司社会责任强化与刑罚加重是一个趋势。基于对我国公司犯罪的判断 ,本文认为 ,我国公司刑事立法偏于轻缓 ,应当调整刑事政策 ,提高刑罚幅度 ,以严格公司治理 ,强化公司社会责任     

国际航空犯罪法人刑事责任及其国内立法转化研究

2010年《北京公约》和《北京议定书》首次规定了国际航空犯罪法人责任,法人责任以法人的高级管理人员代表法人实施劫持航空器等国际航空犯罪为要件,法人为此承担刑事、民事或行政责任。公约对法人犯罪及其责任的立法需要转化为国内法才能适用。世界各国国内法对法人犯罪及其责任的态度差别较大,英国、加拿大、法国等国刑法规定有航空犯罪的法人刑事责任,德国国内法规定有航空犯罪的法人行政责任,意大利刑法规定有航空犯罪的法人民事责任,我国仅在个别航空犯罪中规定有法人犯罪及其刑事责任。我国法人犯罪及其刑事责任的立法和理论具有较强的包容性,可在我国刑法中取消法人犯罪法定化限制,全面规定包括航空犯罪在内的法人犯罪及其刑事责任。     

The Historical Development of Corporate Criminal Liability

The application of criminal liability to corporations grew out of a minor common law doctrine that masters were criminally liable if their servants created a public nuisance by throwing something out of the house onto the street. The expansion of that doctrine to full corporate criminal liability was primarily the result of judicial interpretation of common law and existing statutory laws, rather than the result of any-deliberate legislative action Civil law countries, lacking the tradition of judicial interpretation, have never developed the concept of corporate criminality. Corporate criminal liability will probably continue to expand in common law countries, regardless of its merits.     

International Economic Criminal Law

This inquiry explores the question of transnational companies’ criminal liability for international crimes, reviewing the current state of research in the field of international economic criminal law, a discipline that hitherto has received only scant analysis. Following some preliminary conceptual remarks (I.), the forms of corporate participation in such crimes (II.) and the supranational and national practice since Nuremberg are presented. This practice reveals a clear trend towards corporate liability, albeit represented by leading company staff. For this reason, and because legal persons (companies) ultimately act through natural persons (their staff), their liability (IV.) cannot be convincingly established on a purely collective basis – in the sense of a pure organisation model (IV. 4.1.) – but only on the basis of the attribution model, namely as a derivative corporate liability based upon supervisory or organisational culpability (IV.4.2.). The attribution model’s individual approach – or, to use procedural terms, the individualistic “trigger” for the prosecution of companies – finally brings us to the well-known forms of criminal participation (V.), with liability for complicity in particular coming into question. All in all, the essay concludes (VI.), we should not expect too much of (international) criminal corporate liability. Here, as in many other areas, criminal law can only have a (limited) preventive effect as part of a holistic approach.     

Towards Efficiency in Attributing Criminal Liability to Corporations: Canadian and Brazilian Regimes Compared

This article compares Canadian treatment of corporate criminal liability with that in Brazil, examining whether there are ways in which one system can learn from the other. It is argued that the Canadian model could provide a starting point for revision of Brazilian legal principles in this area that, would encourage the public to recognize that crimes committed by corporations should be taken seriously. However, because criminal liability requires a high burden of proof and is therefore difficult to secure, the Brazilian regime of strict liability may ultimately be useful in encouraging compliance by corporations, assuming sanctions are severe enough and detection of violations by law enforcers is enhanced. The solution may therefore consist in the use of both these regimes, as is currently the case with anticorruption law in the UK.     

The Trial of Joseph Dotterweich: The Origins of the “Responsible Corporate Officer” Doctrine

This article analyzes the origins of the “responsible corporate officer” doctrine: the trial of Joseph Dotterweich. That doctrine holds that an officer may be personally liable for the criminal act of a subordinate if the officer was, in some indefinite way, able to prevent the violation. Applying this doctrine, the prosecution of Dotterweich entailed strict liability for a strict liability offense. The underlying offenses—the interstate sale of one misbranded and adulterated drug and one misbranded drug—were said to be strict liability offenses. And then, with respect to Dotterweich as the corporation’s general manager, the government argued that he was strictly liable because he stood in “responsible relation” to the company’s acts. The government never tried to prove that the company, Buffalo Pharmacal, was negligent, nor did it try to prove that Dotterweich was negligent in his supervision of the employees of Buffalo Pharmacal. The prosecutor and judge were candid about this theory throughout the trial, although the judge conceded that it seemed bizarre and unfair. The defense lawyer repeatedly sought to inject what became known throughout the trial as the “question of good faith,” but was circumvented at almost every turn. What would thus seem to be the crux of any criminal trial—the personal fault of the defendant—was carefully shorn from the jury’s consideration. The government’s theory was so at odds with intuitive notions of liability and blame that, as one probes into the case, and looks at the language used in the government’s appellate briefs, imputations of moral fault inevitably crept in. Yet the government was not entitled to make such accusations, as it had pruned moral considerations from the trial. The article argues that the responsible corporate officer doctrine can never enjoy a secure place in our legal system. First, the doctrine is at a minimum in tension with, and often in direct opposition to, basic principles of the criminal law; and second, the doctrine fails, when followed to its logical conclusions, to accord with basic notions of fair play. The article concludes that the responsible corporate officer doctrine is either unnecessary, in cases in which the evidence establishes personal fault, or unjust, in cases in which it creates liability in the absence of personal fault through the unspecified notion of “responsibility.” The Dotterweich case illustrates what is contemplated by the latter possibility, and why it is problematic in any judicial system that purports, in the words of the Model Penal Code, “to safeguard conduct that is without fault from condemnation as criminal.”     

合规视野下的企业刑事责任问题

在企业的刑事归责问题上,西方国家传统上遵循的是以企业员工的行为和主观过错推论企业行为和主观过错的原则。如今,这一归责方式正在受到普遍的质疑和挑战,一种建立在“组织责任”基础上的理论正在兴起,并为企业合规引入企业归责原则确立了理论上的依据。我国刑法所确立的单位犯罪制度,面临着单位犯罪与自然人犯罪“入罪标准不统一”“同罪不同罚”,单位所承担的刑事责任与行政责任难以保持均衡,以及认定单位主观意志较为困难等方面的问题。唯有建立“企业独立意志理论”,将单位视为一种独立的生命有机体,承认其具有实施独立行为和具有独立主观意志的能力,才能走出上述困境,并将企业合规融入单位归责原则之中。     

论公司犯罪的刑事责任构造

公司犯罪是公司作为主体实施的犯罪。公司犯罪的刑事责任表现为双层结构:一层是刑事责任要件,由刑事义务、归责能力和归责要素组成;另一层是公司的刑事责任分担,包括分担的理论解说和分担原则解释。公司的何等人员应当承担刑事责任,需要运用过错和职位两个规则,并结合各国公司治理结构进行判断。     

Mental disorder and criminality in Canada

This article examines the relationship between mental disorder and criminality in Canada from the colonial period to the landmark 1992 Mental Disorder Amendments that followed the passing of Bill C-30. The history of this relationship has been shaped by longstanding formal and informal systems of social regulation, by the contests of federal–provincial jurisdiction, by changing trends in the legal and psychiatric professions, and by amendments to the federal Criminal Code. A study of these longer-term features demonstrates that there has been no linear path of progress in Canada's response to mentally unwell offenders. Those caught in the web of crime and mental disorder have been cast and recast over the past 150 years by the changing dynamics of criminal law, psychiatry, and politics. A long historical perspective suggests how earlier and more contemporary struggles over mental disorder and criminality are connected, how these struggles are bound by historical circumstance, and how a few relatively progressive historical moments emerging from these struggles might be recovered, and theorized to advantage.     

组织进化视野下对企业刑事归责模式的反思

我国传统企业刑事归责模式的典型特征在于:一方面,其包含了企业和企业成员两个主体的归责,另一方面,企业归责适用的是以特定企业内个人犯罪行为为处罚根据的同一视原则。虽然该模式与我国早期单一科层制企业形态相适应,但随着组织形态的进化,企业规模扩大,内部权力去中心化以及组织结构复杂化,企业犯罪出现了不同于我国早期企业形态下新的特征。为此,传统企业归责模式不仅难以公正地对企业及其成员进行归责,还会造成组织无责、惩罚效果不理想等一系列不利后果。在法人社会下忽略对企业组织犯罪的控制需求并不现实,法人刑事责任拟制论应当被否定。相反,有必要构建与企业成员归责路径相分离的、以企业自身过错为处罚依据的组织责任模式。应当依据功能对等原则对组织责任模式进行构建,维持刑法体系的逻辑严谨性,并遵守刑法的罪责原则。     

Repositioning the corporate criminal: comparing and contrasting corporate criminal liability in Canada and Finland

ABSTRACT

Over the past two decades, a number of states in the Global North have introduced laws aimed at holding corporations criminally liable. While there is an important literature examining these legal regimes there is a paucity of comparative work interrogating the different political struggles and processes leading to corporate criminal liability (CCL) legislation. This paper addresses this lacuna by comparing and contrasting the development of CCL in Canada and Finland. By scrutinizing the law reform processes in each jurisdiction, the paper documents how CCL emerged under different conjunctures in each country, yet were shaped similarly by hegemonic beliefs in the non-criminal status of corporation, the importance of advancing private enterprise and established jurisprudence. Of particular note are the ways in which dominant notions of legal individualism and the universal legal subject constrained legislative efforts to hold corporations criminally to account therein preventing corporate misconduct from being processed as “real” crimes.     

Legislating for corporate criminal liability in Finland: 22-year long debate revisited

The criminal liability of corporations has been the subject of long debates in many countries. This article scrutinizes the 22-year long genesis of corporate criminal liability legislation in Finland. We are interested in unveiling the turns of the law-making process, and in investigating the struggle between various interest groups from a socio-historical perspective. The research data consist of legislative documents such as committee memorandums and written opinions, and the method of inquiry is content analysis. Our study reveals that the core issue of the process became whether jurisprudential principles should be changed in accordance with societal change or whether they are essentially immutable. The Act of Corporate Criminal Liability took effect in 1995, but its coverage was weakened by imposing discretionary sentencing and leaving employment offences outside of its purview. The initial aim and the very justification of the law—to place liability where it belongs—was achieved only in principle. Furthermore, the final outcome of the 1995 law served to actually prevent corporate misconducts from being processed as crimes.     

Globalization of criminal justice in the corporate context

Globalization, the rising of an economy outside the paradigm of government by nation-states, has created new opportunities for transnational corporate crime, defined broadly here as avoidable harms inflicted across national borders for purposes of economic gain. The authors reexamine theories of corporate criminal liability in the transnational context and applaud the recent French codification of corporate criminal liability in terms broad enough to encompass the new economic realities. Finally, they examine the inability of current adjudicative fora to effectively assert jurisdiction over transnational corporations and suggest that the harms associated with toxic waste spills, unethical marketing practices, and other corporate misconduct are more ubiquitous and dangerous than the harms of terrorism and war crimes that have captured the attention of the emerging global civil society.     

英美国家企业刑事责任论的最新发展——以英国《2007年企业过失致人死亡罪法》为例

首先回顾英国{2007年企业过失致人死亡罪法》的出台过程与背景，分析该法的政策意义，并指出有效控制与处罚企业违法行为的政策目的是这一法案得以通过的重要原因。之后，在上述论断的基础上，介绍了英美国家企业刑事责任论近年的发展情况，并分析其中从个人到组织、从主观到客观的发展趋势。最后，提出在企业犯罪频发的现阶段，为了更好地发挥刑罚的预防功能，我国也需要对目前的单位刑事责任论进行反思。     

责任能力比较研究

本文系对中外刑法学中的刑事责任能力的几个问题 ,诸如限制责任能力、无责任能力与原因中的自由行为等进行了详细的比较研究的论文。     

美国环境犯罪严格刑事责任的演化与评析

为了确保食品、药物及环境等涉及公共福利领域的安全,美国法院发展并确立严格刑事责任制度,该制度包括公共福利犯罪原则和有责任的公司管理人员原则。确立环境严格刑事责任的目的是确保刑法在保护环境和促进环境法遵守方面的效率。公共福利犯罪原则和有责任的公司管理人员原则减轻了美国起诉部门的证明责任,降低了司法成本,同时提高了犯罪的成本,增强了刑法的威慑力。这体现了美国环境刑事政策的价值取向是社会利益保护优先和效率优先。     

“Moral Panics” Deflected: The Failed Legislative Response to Canada’s Safety Crimes and Markets Fraud Legislation

This paper critically examines the enforcement, or lack thereof, of criminal laws relating to corporate crime. Using Canada's recently enacted corporate criminal liability (safety crimes) and markets fraud legislation as its empirical focus, it seeks to explain why these laws were introduced, only to fall into a state of virtual disuse. The authors explain how, in the wake of yet another crisis in capitalism, the state felt compelled to enact criminal laws to offset the abuses of corporate power in these two arenas. However, despite promises to 'get tough' on corporate crime, the enforcement of both laws has been sporadic and, in many respects, non-existent. The authors argue that both the passage and the ineffectiveness of Canada's safety crimes and markets fraud legislation can be traced to their shared Keynesian origins as responses to a crisis in neoclassical economics. In essence, both laws are caught-up in a tug-of-war between two opposing yet not incompatible visions of how best to regulate the capitalist marketplace. As a result, even if some corporations and corporate actors are held to legal account, the underlying causes of corporate crime, including the class-based exploitation that is fundamental to capitalism, remain untouched. The authors conclude by arguing for enforcement of corporate crime laws that recognizes the limits of this struggle and the necessity to stave-off capitalism's endemic harms.